


Life is Short; Death is Long

by Scouts_Mockingbird



Series: The House That We Built on the Bay [3]
Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King, Heathers (1988)
Genre: Beetlejuice Musical Verse, Crossover, Established Relationship, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Heathers Movie Verse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, JD and Veronica Are The Maitlands, MCD tag is more of a technicality, Movie AU, That Girl I Knew AU, They're still characters but they do die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2020-05-31 02:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19416550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scouts_Mockingbird/pseuds/Scouts_Mockingbird
Summary: JD and Veronica die in a tragic accident, leaving them as ghosts in the house they built together. When a new couple moves in, they're torn between trying to haunt them out and wanting to help the grieving girl that came with them. After all, who knows how to handle teen angst bullshit better than them?This will make more sense if you read the first fic in the series.





	1. The Whole Being Dead Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to the au no one asked for! I know I've said that a million times, but I've outdone myself this time with an AU of my own AU! I totally understand if you'd like to imagine that after the events of That Girl, JD and Veronica grew old together, happy in their little beach cottage. I sometimes do too, but this is a fun little alternate reality and a great way for me to pay homage to my current musical obsession. Thanks for reading and Enjoy!

They didn’t even notice that they were dead until the cat started screaming. At first, even that wasn’t so unusual. Copernicus was always chatty, often finding himself a seat in the kitchen while Veronica cooked so that he could tell her about his day in a series of chirps and mewls that she nodded and sympathized with as though they were having a conversation. 

JD only realized that something was different when Nostradamus arrived and joined in on the noise. 

Veronica stared at him, putting a hand over her throat. “Is that…” 

“Nosy?” JD whispered around the lump in his throat. The cat made another little yowl before approaching JD to rub against him affectionately. “I missed you, sweetheat.” 

“JD…” Veronica said. “Why is… how… The crash.” 

He nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking that too.” 

“I’m so happy to see him,” She said, and he could see that her eyes had filled, “But that cat is dead.” 

He nodded. “Yeah. I think maybe we are too.” 

“Oh. Well…” She paused. “Fuck.” 

“Yeah.” 

“But we’re in our house! I mean, is this what the afterlife is? The two of us, in our house, forever?” 

He smiled and took her hand, spinning her under his arm to pull her close. “Maybe this is heaven.” 

She laughed, shaking her head indulgently. “JD, I’m being serious--” 

“I know, Ron. But, can I say that, since we’re doing this, I’m glad we’re doing it together.” 

She smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder. He rubbed her back, still not sure how this, which was so similar to the way their lives had been, could be death.

“I keep thinking about all the things we didn’t do,” She whispered after a while. 

He knew immediately what she meant. It was a conversation they only ever half-had, starting with vague jokes or hypotheticals that never quite went anywhere. 

“We weren’t ready,” She said quickly. “It’s just… now we’ll never be, you know?” 

He nodded. He had liked to believe that they could have been ready, or that no one ever was, but even he had his doubts. 

After all, what the fuck did either of them know about being good parents? 

“I’m sorry.” She looked away and swallowed hard. 

JD shook his head and pulled her back into the hug. “Veronica--” 

“You wanted to,” She whispered, her voice struggling around a lump in her throat. 

“No, Ronnie.” He rested his hand on the back of her head. “I wasn’t… It was always easy to drop the conversation. I mean, we had all the time in the world, right?” He laughed bitterly. 

Veronica almost never fully cried, but he could tell she was close, which meant he was close too. They held each other for a long time before he said, “I’m never going to regret the way we lived our life, Veronica. It was perfect, while it lasted.” 

She smiled, clearing her throat to speak. “I don’t need one of your big romantic speeches, JD.” She rolled her eyes. “This is why we didn’t write our own wedding vows.” 

He laughed with her and kissed the top of her head, letting her lead them away from the conversation and back onto comfortable footing. 

After a minute of looking around and searching for something to say, he noticed an odd detail. “Did you leave a book on the table?” 

She tilted her head. “We died an hour ago and you’re going to talk to me about clutter?” Her voice was finally clear, with no trace of the previously threatening tears. 

He picked up the familiar banter easily. “Well, I built enough storage into this house for you to be able to put things away, but ignoring that, did you leave a book on the table?” 

“I don’t think so.” Veronica crossed the room and picked up the book. “The Handbook for the Recently Deceased. Oh that’s nice, we get a book.” 

“What does it say?” He waited while she skimmed through it. 

“Surprisingly unhelpful for a handbook,” She said. “Stuff about the Netherworld, some information about being a ghost, how to handle the living. Pretty much what you’d expect.” 

“Anything interesting?” 

“JD, it’s a book for dead people about being dead. I think just about all of it is interesting in some way.” 

“What’s the Netherworld?” 

“The afterlife place. We can go there if we want, or we have the option of staying here as ghosts.” 

“What do you want?” He asked, looking around the house. 

She followed his gaze and together they studied their stuff, the walls that still needed art, the little spaces that should have had furniture, the shelves they hadn’t managed to fill. 

“I’m not ready yet,” She whispered, an echo of the phrase they’d hidden behind many times. 

He took her hand. “Neither am I.” 

So they stayed. 

At first, it didn’t feel like haunting. It felt like living in their house, aside from the fact that they couldn’t leave, didn’t need to eat, and occasionally fell through walls when they leaned without paying attention. It was, surprisingly, normal. They took care of the cats, though Nostradamus hardly needed care anymore, and waited to see what would come next. 

The other shoe dropped when a car pulled into the driveway roughly two weeks after they died. 

JD recognized Colin when he walked out, but not the people following him. Colin looked tired, maybe even sad, as he led the couple up the stairs into the house. 

“As you can see, the outside was designed to emulate old world beach houses, while the inside was intended to be modern and bright, with comfortable spacing. It’s some of Dean’s best work.” 

The man nodded absently towards the woman, who was strikingly tall and red-haired. They both had an air of wealth, but a certain stench of eccentricity hung around them and put JD off. 

“Now, I think this wall would have to go,” The woman said. “It’s in the way of creating the collective environment.” 

JD pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can’t remove that wall, you twit; it’s load-bearing.” 

Colin flinched a little. “This house belonged to a very beloved Boston architect and his wife. It… might not go over well with some people in the city if you made too many changes.” 

“If it was so important,” The man said, blustering, “They shouldn’t have left it.” 

Colin flinched again, physically ducking away from the man while, next to him, Veronica leaned in, her hands curled into fists. “They didn’t leave, Mr. Deetz; they died.” 

That made the man blanch, just a little, which gave JD a stab of satisfaction. “Take that, jackass!” 

Veronica glanced at him. “He can’t hear you.” 

“I know, I just had to get that out.” 

She took his hand and they followed Colin and the Deetzes through the rest of the house, listening with alternating rage, pain, and misery while they talked about the house. 

“It’s perfect,” Deetz finally said, smiling with too many teeth. “We’ll take it!” 

JD’s jaw flexed. “Colin, I swear to god or satan or whoever’s in charge here, if you sell this house to these people, I’ll--” 

“I have the paperwork in my car,” He said with resignation. 

“How dare you!” JD snapped, “I introduced you to your boyfriend you son of a bitch! Traitor!” 

“JD!” Veronica grabbed his hand, and he looked over to see that her eyes were brighter than normal. “He can’t hear you.” 

“How could he do this to us? To what’s left of us?” He gestured at the house, the bedroom they were standing in. Their bedroom. 

“He doesn’t know we’re still here.” 

He pulled her against him, needing the comfort of having her close. He knew he shouldn’t whine about someone buying his house-- technically speaking, he didn’t live there anymore-- but it still stung. It was the home he’d fought so hard for. Against his will, his eyes filled with tears and he had to fight them back. 

*** 

Veronica walked downstairs and watched the Deetzes sign the paperwork. They were eager, cheerful, talking rapidly about the things they wanted to move in, including sculptures the woman made and something about an office space for the man. 

She felt a frustrated growl build in her throat at the idea of this man setting up shop in her office. The place she’d written hundreds of Heather letters, and three (Three!) award winning articles. It was sacred, and it was not for some fancy rich asshole to invade. 

JD joined her seething in time to watch them get into a fancy car and drive away. She looked at him, her eyes blazing. “JD, we’re ghosts.” 

He sighed. “Yes, that’s very evident.” Sarcasm oozed bitterly from tight lips. 

“What do ghosts  _ do _ , JD?” 

He looked at her, realizing slowly dawning on his face. 

She smiled. “Let’s haunt this bitch.” 

“Moving is always chaos,” JD said, days later when they were watching two long-suffering movers haul a collection of the ugliest furniture Veronica had ever seen into their house. “We just have to make it a little worse, is all.” 

His smile was one Veronica recognized as his “Let’s fuck shit up” expression, which had softened over the years, but still succeeded in reminding her of when they’d first met. 

She smiled back. “Are you ready?” They had spent the intervening week studying every word the handbook had to offer on haunting. They weren’t exactly skilled yet, but they’d both learned how to do some fucked-up claymation shit with their faces. 

“I was born ready. Let’s make them see us.” 

That, as it turned out, was the tricky part. Try as they might, and as scary as they made themselves, no one noticed them. 

“I was really expecting a lot more screaming,” JD said dejectedly, sitting next to Veronica so he could rearrange his face into its natural order. 

“You looked really good though,” Veronica said, offering a small smile. She was perched on the railing of the widow’s watch on top of the house, looking out over the ocean. 

“Thanks, Ron. Hey, you missed a spot,” He reached over and helpfully lifted her cheekbone back into place. 

“Let me get the book, maybe we missed something about being seen.” They had not read the book the way it was probably intended, starting with the chapters on haunting and skipping the introduction and everything about the Netherworld entirely; one did not do as well as Veronica had in school without being an effective skimmer. 

She went back to the beginning, glancing through the introduction. “It says here that living people ignore the strange and unusual.” 

“So the reason they won’t see us is because we’re being too weird? If I just show up looking like a regular person we could have a civilized discussion about the situation?” 

“No, I think ghosts are considered strange and unusual no matter what they look like.” She chewed her lip. “What if-- don’t get mad-- but what if we made ourselves visible in a different way?” 

“Like what? Hey, do you think we could train Copernicus to help us?” The cat had continued to hang around them, but had avoided the home’s new owners surprisingly effectively. 

“No, god knows I love that cat but he’s nowhere near smart enough to do what we need him to.” 

“Nosy could have done it.” The ghost cat in question walked through the wall in time to curl around JD and lay down. He hadn’t liked when their faces were weird and had gone away to wherever he disappeared to when they couldn’t find him. 

“I still think we can, if we go about it the right way.” 

“How so?” 

“Sheets.” 

“What?” 

She sighed. “I think we need to cover ourselves with sheets. Think about it; we still have mass, so they’ll hang on top of us. We’ll be visible!” 

He grimaced. “But at what cost, Veronica? I mean, just because we’re dead doesn’t mean we’ve lost all dignity.” 

“You never had that much dignity to begin with; it’s hardly a loss.”

He frowned to hide his smile. “You wound me, Wife.” 

Resting her head on his shoulder, she looked up at him. “I think it’s the only way.” 

“Fine, we’ll try it tonight.” He put his arm around her and kissed her hair. “This isn’t over yet.” 

The sat together, like they had for so many mornings when they were alive, looking out over the ocean and watching the waves roll in. 

“Hey, who’s that?” Veronica asked, pointing out towards the water. 

She was too small to be the Mrs. Deetz. She was wearing a full black dress and large, wide hat, a costumey outfit on the best of days, which looked downright silly on the beach. 

“Has to be a teenager,” JD said, standing. 

“How did we not even notice her?” Veronica asked. “I had no idea the Deetzs had a kid.” 

He shrugged. “Maybe she’s been hiding? Let’s go down there.” 

“LYDIA!” JD recognized Deetz’s voice coming from the back porch and he stopped before jumping off the roof. 

The figure turned, and JD could make out a narrow, pale face, framed dramatically with cropped white-blond hair. 

Veronica sighed next to him, watching her trudge up the beach towards her father. She looked back towards the book on the table. “She seems… sad, don’t you think?” 

JD nodded. 

“What if… never mind.” 

“What?” 

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It doesn’t matter.” 

“Veronica, this is a bad start to our afterlife together if you’re already keeping secrets.” He bumped his shoulder against hers gently. 

She finally quirked a smile at him. “Nothing, I just… feel bad kicking a family with a kid out of a house. I hear moving can be really damaging on the teenaged psyche.” 

JD laughed and rolled his eyes, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Very funny. Why don’t we try your little sheet trick and then see where we stand. Based on how today went, this family isn’t getting haunted out of here anytime soon.” 

“It’s a plan. Come on, I think we have some spare linens in the attic.”

“Christ, not the ugly ones from your old apartment?” 

“Hey! Those--”

“Those are dead old lady sheets, Veronica, and we never should have kept them.” 

“First of all, that old lady is the reason we met, and if we happen to bump into her in the afterlife we should say thank you, and second of all, I would rather cut holes in ugly sheets anyway. You may use whatever sheets you’d like.” She squared her shoulders primly to emphasize her point.

***

Veronica had donned an ugly floral sheet, feeling like a complete fool as she examined her reflection in the cracked mirror they’d stored in the attic. “What do you think?” 

JD had opted instead to put on his old coat, claiming that it would have the same effect as the sheet if she was right. 

“A flying coat attached to an invisible man is much more intimidating than a sheet, Veronica,” He’d insisted. 

It was comforting to be the less ridiculous of the two of them. 

Together, they marched down the stairs and into the bedroom hallway. “It really disgusts me that they’re taking over our bedroom,” JD said. 

Veronica shuddered. “I don’t want to think about that.” 

“I mean, that’s where--”

“JD.” 

“Right. So… what now?” 

“Now we do what ghosts do. Wail and moan and shit, make some noise.” 

He nodded seriously. 

A moment later they exchanged a glance. “You first,” JD said finally. 

“Ugh, fine,” She muttered. “Oooooooh! Awoooo!!! We’re ghooooosts!” 

Beside her, JD laughed

She elbowed him. “Shut up and help me, dick!”

“That’s no way to talk to the love of your unlife.” 

“JD, I swear to god--” 

“Fine, Jesus. AAAOOOOO!!! WOOOOOO! Very Scary Things Are Happening!”

“Could you two keep it down? I’m a child for christ’s sake.” The teenager from the beach opened the door that had once belonged to their shared office. “Keep your weird sex shit in your bedroom.” 

She stopped when she saw them. 

“Um… What the fuck.” 

“Lydia!” Deetz’s voice filtered through the master bedroom door. “Watch your language!” 

“But dad! There are…people in the hallway!” 

“It’s late, Lydia, stop playing games and go to sleep.” 

“But dad!”

“Lydia, I don’t want to ask you again!” 

Lydia’s lips pressed into a thin line and she pulled out a polaroid camera, snapping several pictures of the two of them. “He’ll have to believe me when he sees these.” She picked one off the ground, shaking it vigorously for a moment before looking at it. She then looked back up at them. 

She stared, stepping closer, looking between them and the photo in her hand. “No feet.” 

_Well,_ Veronica thought, _we_ _wanted to be seen._

  
  



	2. The World Carries On Like Mad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again with this. Comments much appreciated. Enjoy!

Lydia had always been a little peculiar. Even before her mother had died and her father had gone totally insane, she’d been a bit odd, the kind of kid that the other moms on the playground had warned their kids away from. This didn’t bother Lydia; her mother had been her best friend and closest confidante.

Now she had no one, and that loneliness had made her lean even further into her weirdness. She wore black exclusively, dressing like a Victorian widow because it freaked her dad out and Delia hated it. It was outward strangeness to match the strange, out of place feeling that had rooted in her chest four months earlier when her mother had died.

Then her father had uprooted her, dragging her and his fiancée to what he called “a little paradise”. As if being next to the ocean would make her feel better. The only comfort was that the house was weird too. It had too many windows, and when she’d walked into her bedroom, a dark brown and black cat had been sitting in the center of the room, watching the door like he was waiting for her.

To find out that there were real spirits haunting the place was almost predictable, but it sent a thrill through Lydia anyway. Her mother had loved all things spooky and hearing that Lydia had seen two real ghosts would have made her smile. But that thought made Lydia frown. She couldn’t tell her mother about the ghosts.

“Are you… ghosts?” Lydia asked, feeling a slow smile crawl onto her face. It was foreign on her lips, but oddly nice.

“Smart kid,” The man muttered to the woman next to him. To Lydia, he said. “Yeah, we’re ghosts, and you’re not supposed to see us.”

“Why’s that?”

“The book said that living people ignore the strange and unusual,” The woman said.

Lydia gestured to her pitch-black mourning gown. “I, myself, am strange and unusual.”

An odd, pinched look crossed the man’s lips, almost like he was trying not to laugh. “I’m sure you are, Kiddo.”

“What’s the cat’s name?” She asked. He had been sitting on her bed when she’d walked in earlier, watching her like a sentinel. “He was yours, right?”

“His name is Copernicus, and yeah, he was yours. If you see another one wandering around, that’s Nostradamus. He’s a ghost too.”

“Weird,” She said, surprised that her smile was holding. It had been a long time since something had made her feel like this. She was interested, curious. It was almost like being happy.

“I’m JD,” The man said, holding out his hand, “And this is my wife, Veronica.”

Lydia hesitated before taking his hand. What if hers went right through it? But his hand was smooth and cool, perhaps not exactly normal-feeling, but not the empty air she’d thought she’d be grasping. “I’m Lydia.”

“So, Lydia, have you seen ghosts before?” Veronica asked.

She shook her head.

“You’re taking this all very well,” She said. “I would have thought I was losing my mind.”

Lydia just shrugged. She felt half dead most of the time, seeing the dead just felt like a natural progression. “What were you doing, anyway?”

“Oh, um…” JD picked at a loose thread on his coat awkwardly, while Veronica studied the floor. “We were trying to, well, scare your parents out of the house.”

“They’re not my parents,” Lydia corrected bitterly on instinct. “He’s my dad and she’s his girlfriend. She was supposed to be my life coach, but then he felt weird paying her when they were dating.”

“And you’re calling us weird,” JD said. “What the fuck does a life coach do, anyway?”

Veronica elbowed him, but Lydia liked that he swore in front of her; he wasn’t stuffy like most adults. “I don’t know, she tries to motivate me to be happy or something.”

He frowned. “What you need is a therapist. I know a great guy in the city. I’ll give you his name.”

“I’m not crazy; I don’t need a therapist.”

“Right, dressing in all black and wandering around late at night, talking to ghosts is all totally normal, so sorry.”

She looked away. “It is when your mom dies!”

He flinched a little, and Lydia was sure this was where the conversation would get awkward. All adults hated seeing her grief, hated that there was nothing they could do because life was cruel. They would shuffle and change the subject, then make an excuse to leave as soon as they could.

“You’re right, kid, I’m sorry.”

It took her a minute to realize what he’d said, to realize that he hadn’t followed the script. She looked up, and his eyes were warm and green, and so shockingly understanding, that all of a sudden Lydia found herself crying.

Veronica elbowed him again. “JD, you made her cry!” She stepped forward and put a hand on Lydia’s shoulder. Lydia stepped a little closer and was wrapped in a hug that smelled like old books, ink, and something smoky.

It was the first hug Lydia had been in that didn’t seem like it was just a way to shut her up. Somehow, she knew that Veronica would stand her and hug her until she pulled away, no matter how long that took.

“When did it happen?” JD asked.

“Six months and thirteen days,” Lydia said immediately, the calendar in her mind as unfailing as it was unconscious.

“I’m sorry,” He said, and it sounded genuine, not just the thing people said. “My mom died when I was about your age,” He told her.

Lydia hiccupped and tried to slow the flow of tears. “How did you… What did you do?”

He shrugged. “We moved. I just… stopped I guess, then I got angry. It took me a long time to get over that.”

“I’m angry,” She said, even though it was weird to say this to two perfect strangers, who were also dead. “I’m angry at my dad because he only made us move because he wants to build a real estate development.”

“He wants to what?” JD said, his voice suddenly hard. Lydia wished she could sound that angry about anything. When she got mad, she cried, and her voice got high pitched and choked and no one ever thought she was serious. “Here?”

She shrugged. “Yeah.”

“That bastard,” JD said.

“Obviously not helping with your grief is bad too,” Veronica said pointedly. “Sorry, JD is very attached to this house because he designed it.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I was an architect before I died.” 

“And you lived here?” Lydia said, her tears finally slowing as a thought that had been there from the start finally solidified into a question she could ask. “Does that mean… maybe my mom is in our old house?”

JD and Veronica exchanged a glance. “I don’t know, Lydia,” Veronica said. “We’re new at all this ghost stuff.”

“Right,” She said. “You want us to leave, right?”

They both started to hem and haw, but Lydia cut them off. “You want us out of your house, and I want us back into my old house. This works perfectly!”

“Lydia…”

“Hey, she’s right,” JD pointed out before Veronica could finish what she was saying. “We were going to haunt them out.”

Lydia smiled. “So, we’re in this together?”

JD nodded and ruffled her hair. “Yes, but it’s late. Get some sleep and we’ll have a planning meeting tomorrow.”

“Promise you’ll still be here?”

“Promise.” He reached out his hand and they shook on it solemnly.

* * *

“How confident are we that this is a good idea?” Veronica asked as she and JD made their way back up to the attic.

“What could go wrong?” JD replied with a shrug.

Veronica rolled her eyes “Let me count the ways. One: Lydia is a grieving teenager who’s decided that this is a way she can see her mother again. Two: We have no idea whether or not that’s true. Three: We’re terrible at haunting. Four—”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” JD said, throwing his hands up before wrapping them around her. “But just because we haven’t figured it out yet doesn’t mean we’re terrible at it. And did you hear that kid? She’s an evil genius, no way this goes wrong.”

She rolled her eyes again, this time with even more exasperation. “Hearing you say that fills me with dread.”

JD just laughed and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her head. She leaned into the embrace, finding a smile amid her irritation. She rotated in his arms so she could kiss him, stumbling and falling through a nightstand they’d abandoned in the attic ages ago.

He caught her, smiling and pulling her back into the hug. After a moment, he broke the kiss to look at her. “Hey, Veronica?”

She didn’t like that tone. “What?”

He kissed her again. “Do you think this counts as necrophilia?”

Veronica pulled away, glaring at him. “Gross.”

“What? It’s an honest question!”

She pulled away. “Way to ruin the mood.”

“It only ruins the mood if you let it.”

“Necrophilia always ruins the mood, JD.”

“Obviously not for everyone.”

“And again, I say gross.”

The next morning, they woke up from the vague liminality that was sleep for the dead reluctantly. Days blurred together into a wearying sameness that was frustrating, and their disastrous attempt at haunting the previous day had made Veronica reluctant to ever leave their peaceful little attic again.

JD, of course, had other priorities. “Come on, we promised the kid.”

“Right,” She groaned. “Get me the book.”

He handed the book to Veronica and she started to flip through it. “Here it is ‘Basics of Haunting’”

“Isn’t that what we already read?”

“No, that was ‘Introduction to Haunting’.”

“Those are two different chapters?”

“Apparently. Do you want to hear what it has to say, or not?”

After a heavy sigh, he nodded, and she began to read aloud. “’So, you’re troubled by humans occupying the space you’d like to happily haunt for your eternity? When you’re dead, it may feel like there aren’t many options, but we, the writers of the Handbook, feel that many ghosts limit themselves unnecessarily.” She scanned further down the page until she got to a part with a convenient acronym.

“In the event of hard to handle humans, just remember to PHOCK. Possess, Haunt, Ooze, Creep, or Kill.”

“Kill?” JD said, raising one eyebrow.

“We’ll just cross that one off the list,” She told him quickly; they’d done quite enough killing.

Rather than sit in awkward, reminiscent silence, Veronica went on. “Throughout history there has been much debate over which order these unique ghost skills ought to be used in, however, this guide believes it is up to the haunter to make their own choice based on many factors which may impact the success of their actions.”

“I’ve always loved a choose your own adventure,” JD said. “Where do you think we should start?”

Veronica shrugged. “I don’t think we know how to do any of those.”

“Maybe possession?” JD suggested. “That doesn’t require visibility.”

“It seems wrong though, doing that to a person.” She shuddered even though she hadn’t felt any temperature since she’d died.

JD shrugged. “Bad people though.”

Some things never changed. “Really? Just because he wants to redecorate the house?”

“Developing the area into some kind of tourist trap is more than just redecorating, Veronica, and anyway did you see Lydia? The kid’s as bad as I was. No way a good person lets his kid go through that.”

Veronica couldn’t argue with that. Lydia clearly acted tough, aloof, and angrily uncaring, but there was a fragility behind her eyes and a fearful way that she moved which revealed hidden sensitivity. She was afraid of getting hurt again, and far more delicate than she let on.

“And what if we make it worse?” Veronica asked. “What if all we do is give her hope that we can’t deliver on?”

“I don’t know, Veronica. Who’s to say that this won’t work though? I mean, clearly it’s not impossible.” He gestured to himself and at the attic around them. “We don’t know that much about being dead, Veronica. We don’t know the rules. Her mom could be out there.”

Was that enough to pin the hopes of a traumatized teenager on? Veronica wasn’t sure, but she let the subject drop and went back to the book. “Do you want to hear about possession?”

He allowed the topic change without question. “Hit me.”

“The book says it’s fairly standard,” Veronica said, glancing flipping ahead a bit. Basically, we have to reach out and… will for control? Most people are easy to possess, though some people with active minds may make themselves difficult.”

A frown cut into JD’s face and he looked out the window at the strange garden furniture that the Deetz’s had installed. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”

Veronica fought a smile. She looked back at the book to see what other advice it offered. “Oh, JD, this is interesting. Look, it says that some ghosts can possess buildings, allowing them to make changes to the structure which defy the laws of physics.”

That, of course, made JD light up. “Ghost architecture?”

“Essentially.”

“Veronica, this is amazing, who needs to possess people when we can turn the house itself against them!”

“I don’t know, it looks like buildings are more advanced than people.”

JD ignored her doubt. “V, this is our house! We practically built our souls into the walls! Hell, maybe that’s why we’re here instead of haunting the side of the road where we crashed. We can do this.” His confidence was almost infectious, and Veronica wanted to believe him. It would be so much easier to possess the building and let that do the scaring for them. Though she didn’t want to bring it up with JD, the idea of controlling a person completely like that disturbed Veronica. She knew what powerlessness felt like, and didn’t wish it on anyone, even the hapless, tasteless Deetzes.

She looked at the sloping walls of the attic. “Alright, try something, see if you can… I don’t know, get rid of that window.”

“That window never did any harm to anyone, I don’t want to wipe it off the face of existence.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Fine, get rid of that.” She pointed at one of the beams that ran over the ceiling.

“That one is load bearing, I can’t—”

“JD, this was your idea, stop making excuses and possesses the house.”

He ground his teeth together. “Fine.” With one hand resting on the attic wall, he closed his eyes and Veronica watched as he pressed into it.

The next several hours were spent in bored silence while JD tapped on different walls and did absolutely nothing to change the structure of the room. “Um—”

“Wait, I almost have it.”

Another long pause, where the attic, at least, remained exactly as it was.

“JD,” Veronica started, “Maybe this isn’t—”

“Wait, no I know I’m close. It’s like… I can feel the walls. I know where everything is, I just have to figure out how to change it.”

Veronica rested her elbows on her knees, settling in to wait for a while.

Very slowly, something around the room started to shift, molding around as beams flexed and fell, creating odd, cage-like columns where there had once been open space. The door shifted to another side of the room, where it would open to open air and a long drop down to the sand. The little ladder that led to the widow’s watch expanded into a grand staircase that shouldn’t logically have fit in the space, but there it was.

“Wow,” Veronica said. “Was this what you would have done with the place if you could have?”

“It’s a different look,” He said, surveying his work with justified pride. “What do you think?”

“It’s interesting, but I’m not sure it’s scary.”

JD shrugged. “We don’t have to make it scary, just utterly uninhabitable. Imagine you’re trying to go to the bathroom late at night, but the bathroom keeps moving, or making a snack with a stove that’s sitting calmly on the ceiling.”

“That’s unbelievably cruel,” Veronica said with a broad smile.

Nostradamus slipped into the room and began to rub against Veronica’s legs, apparently unaffected by the structural changes. She reached down to pet him, smiling affectionately. “How did you get in here?”

“Good to know he’s not bothered by our changes,” JD said, sitting next to her so he could shower affection on the cat.

“I missed him,” Veronica said, shifting so there was room for Nostradamus on her lap.

“Me too. I wonder what Copernicus is up to?”

“Based on what she said yesterday, he likes Lydia a lot, he could be with her.” The thought made her feel strangely bittersweet, but it would make sense for their living cat to be more at ease with the living person in their house. “He’ll be sad when she leaves,”

JD nodded, missing the little hint she was trying to drop. He had a faraway, sad look on his face. “What if it was possible?” He asked. “What she wants to do.”

“Finding her mom? I thought we thought it was possible?” It took her another moment—far too long—to realize what he was really talking about. “Oh. Right. Do you want to look for her?”

“We can’t leave the house,” He pointed out. “And anyway, we lived so many places there’s no way to know where she might be.”

“There’s… well she could be in the Netherworld.”

He shrugged. “Never mind, sorry I brought it up. Just curious, I guess.”

“We can look in the book—” She started but he shook his head, looking away and her offer died in her throat.

“It’s fine, V.” Even after all these years, and all the ways he’d grown and changed, his mother’s death was still a topic they didn’t cover. “I’m moving forward.”

She nodded, though she didn’t agree. It felt hard to move forward after she’d died. There was a sense that striving was over, that they were going to be standing still, stuck in this attic, for the rest of time, regardless of who was or was not living in their house.

“Where’s Lydia?” JD asked abruptly. “She seemed so eager yesterday, but we’ve been up here for a while and she hasn’t come up.”

“Maybe she forgot?” Veronica suggested. “Maybe living people can’t remember when they’ve seen ghost.”

“I don’t know,” He said, his face troubled, “She didn’t seem forgetful.”

She hadn’t. In fact, she’d seemed unusually aware with those bright, curious brown eyes. She bit her lip and looked away, staring out the window JD had moved earlier.

A lone, black-clad figure stood on the beach, white sand and silvery water framing her dramatically. “JD.” She pointed at her.

He stared. “Something’s not right.”

She nodded, and when he opened an enormous doorway in the wall, she didn’t hesitate to step out of it, falling to the ground with no more pain than if she’d jumped off of a stepstool.

Lydia stood in front of them, further down the beach and staring out into the horizon, the water gathering around the skirt of her long black dress.

“I don’t like this, V,” JD said, picking up his pace.

Lydia was moving further into the water with slow, determined purpose. Waves crashed around her, but she didn’t flinch or turn away, even has her waterlogged skirt started to look very heavy.

Perhaps it was a new sense they’d developed since dying, or perhaps it was just an awareness, a familiarity to the situation that tugged at something she’d buried a long time ago. They began to run.


	3. Trapped With No Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter of this because I got it done. There are probably going to be some inconsistencies with this story because I'm writing and posting without a whole lot of checking. Please be warned that this chapter contains canon-typical themes of suicide; don't read it if you find that triggering. Otherwise, Enjoy!

Now that they weren’t alive, or even particularly solid, it was easy to move through water. It was a dumb thing to notice in a situation this tense, but JD appreciated any distraction from this mindless panic, which felt like a stranglehold around his throat.

“Lydia?”

She turned towards their voices and he saw that her face was ashy-pale, streaked with tears and yet curiously expressionless. She noted them behind her with just a faint crease between her eyebrows before turning back to her slow march into the water.

“Go away,” She said.

A strange tug almost made JD take a step back, and he wondered if somehow Lydia was pushing them away with her words. He refused to let it work and kept pushing forward, Veronica at his side.

“Lydia, come back here,” He said, reaching for her. The water was getting deep, nearly up to Lydia’s chest and with the waves it wouldn’t be long before she went under.

“I said go away,” Lydia said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear her over the sound of waves breaking on the shore. “You’re not even real.”

“Nothing is real, kid, get out of the water,” He said on instinct, more desperate that thoughtful.

Veronica glared at him before turning far more sympathetic eyes to Lydia. “Why would you think we’re not real? We’re right here and we’re talking to you.”

“Yeah, hallucinations do that,” Lydia said, her trance-like blankness slipping away in favor of sarcasm.

It was like seeing clouds break, and hope managed to slide through some of JD’s panic. “Lydia—”

“If you’re real then where were you?” She suddenly snapped as a wave broke near them, wetting her up to her neck. “I went looking for you! I warned my dad that the house was haunted and he didn’t believe me, so I was going to show him the attic, but the house doesn’t have an attic!”

“Yes, it does,” JD said. He knew the house plans like the back of his hand, every inch of wood and plaster and glass was mapped flawlessly in his head. He knew that his house had a fucking attic.

“There was no door!” She was shouting now, and the tears were falling faster as the waves churned around them.

“Lydia, come here,” Veronica said slowly. “Let’s walk onto the beach and we’ll talk about it.”

“No. I’m sick of talking to adults who think they’re going to make it better when they just want to leave.”

“No one wants to leave,” JD said. “We want to help. I’ve been where you are, Kiddo, and—”

“You have no idea what I’m going through! Everyone says they know, everyone acts like this is normal. I’M NOT NORMAL!”

“You feel like you’re standing at the edge of a cliff,” JD said. “You’re looking out and you’re supposed to see the whole world. Your whole future. But there’s nothing there. You look out over the world and it’s just a desert. Right? Am I even close?”

She was still crying in little hiccupping sobs as JD reached out, trying to pull her closer. She took one small step towards him, falling a little as a wave pushed her from behind. She choked, coughing up salt water while JD reached out and grabbed the trailing end of her sleeve and used it to haul her closer.

The lace tore a little in his hand before he could get a better grip around Lydia’s waist. She was still cough-sobbing while he half-carried her towards the beach.

“I’m tired,” She managed, barely comprehensible through her tears.

“I know,” Veronica whispered. That was something JD didn’t remember. He’d never felt tired. Sick, angry, reckless, all of those in droves, but never tired.

“Where were you?” Lydia gasped out, collapsing onto the sand as JD finally allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. “I looked for you! I thought—”

“We…” Veronica looked at him, her eyes pleading, but he didn’t know what to say or how to explain. “We were trying to haunt the house,” She finally said, “And we must have moved the attic.”

“Moved…” She wiped a tear away, leaving a streak of sand and eyeliner. “That makes no sense.”

“I know it doesn’t,” JD started.

Lydia cut him off. “Stop saying you know. You all act like you know everything, but you don’t.”

“Lydia, I don’t know shit, okay? I’m just trying to explain, but that, out there—” He pointed to the waves— “Scared the shit out of me, so I’m struggling a little. Can you be patient with us?”

She nodded slowly and wiped away another tear, leaning a little closer to Veronica.

“We read in the book—”

“What book? There’s a book about being dead? Can I see it?”

“Nope, absolutely not. The secrets of the afterlife are for dead eyes only.”

She huffed and crossed her arms, a little color returning to her cheeks a little life returning to her eyes. “Oh, come on, please? I’m basically already dead!”

“You are not,” JD said, shuddering when he thought of how she’d looked in the water.

“I am on the inside,” She muttered, glaring at the sand.

JD was not ready to joke about it. “Cute. You’re still not allowed to read the book.”

“Anyway,” Veronica interrupted, “We read that you could possess buildings, so we were practicing with that, so we’d have something to show you. We didn’t know we’d gotten rid of the door, and we’re so sorry.”

JD nodded. “Really, Lyds, we’re sorry.”

She rubbed at her face, which was splotched red and streaked with sand and salt and makeup. “I know. It’s okay.”

“It isn’t okay,” Veronica said. “We told you we would be there for you and we weren’t, then made it all worse because we weren’t paying attention. You don’t have to be okay with that.”

Abruptly, Lydia started crying again, leaning towards him so fast that he almost didn’t have time to make sure he was solid by the time she got there.

“We’re going to make it up to you, Lydia, I promise.”

“It doesn’t matter,” She muttered, muffled in his shirt. “My dad doesn’t believe in ghosts, he won’t be scared.”

Veronica smiled. “Then I guess we’re just going to have to make him believe, aren’t we?”

“We can possess houses now,” JD reminded her. “Ghosts or no ghosts that’s pretty fucking scary—”

“JD, watch your language!”

“Veronica, how much did we swear when we were her age?”

Lydia laughed, odd, stilted and hiccupping, but it was a vast improvement on sobbing. “It’s okay, I don’t mind. One time my mom was making brownies for a bake sale at my school and she burned them so bad the smoke alarm went off. She said the F word so loud the neighbors complained about it.”

JD laughed and gave Lydia another quick hug. “Your mom sounds really cool.”

Her smile wobbled. “She was.”

“Come on, let’s get you inside, you’re soaked and it’s cold out.”

She nodded and let him help her up and towards the house. “Do you think my dress is ruined?”

Veronica glanced at it. “There might be something we can do, but you should get warm first.”

* * *

Lydia’s day had been bad, worse, horrible, and strange, so it was nice, just for a minute, to allow herself to be guided upstairs to the attic— which had made a miraculous return—and made to sit down in a strange fort-like structure that might have formed itself out of nothing right in front of her. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to look right at it when JD had built it, but she studied the walls with fascination now that she was curled up in the corner. She’d made a stop in her bedroom for new clothes, opting for sweatpants rather than one of her elaborate dresses.

JD had wrapped her up in a thick flannel shirt that must have belonged to him, but she kept one fist tight around the fabric. This was hers now. He sat with her in silence for several minutes until Veronica arrived with a steaming bowl of pasta.

“I’m not hungry,” Lydia started to explain. She’d barely eaten since the funeral, only occasionally forcing down exactly enough of the tasteless, organic, Non-GMO foods Delia had delivered to keep her alive.

Veronica shook her head. “We’re not going to talk about ghost things until you’ve eaten.”

“But—”

“Lydia.”

“Veronica’s a really good cook,” JD promised with an encouraging smile.

She took the bowl with a scowl and shoved a bite in her mouth, trying to imbue the action with as much spite as she possibly could. Her irritation melted as she chewed. Possibly it was the cold that lingered in her bones, or the fact that she didn’t think she’d eaten anything with butter since before her mother died, or simply because this was a meal that someone had made specifically for her, because they wanted her to eat it, but this was the best fucking pasta Lydia had eaten in her entire life.

She shoveled more into her mouth and gestured with her fork while she slurped up what hadn’t fit the first time. “You can talk about ghost stuff now.”

Veronica smiled, both affectionate and pleased at the response to her cooking. “Alright, let me know if you want more.”

Lydia nodded, surprising herself by considering seconds for the first time in months.

“So,” JD said, “Ghost things. What now?”

“We have to scare my dad, even though he doesn’t believe in you,” Lydia said, bitterly remembering her horrible, hopeless conversation with her father earlier that day.

“We believe in ourselves,” JD said with confidence that might have been intentionally silly. “We don’t need him.”

Lydia giggled, and remembered a detail he’d mentioned earlier. “What does the dead people book say?”

She was momentarily distracted as Veronica picked up the book and began to leaf through it, because Copernicus wandered into her fort and curled up in her lap, adding another layer of warmth to what was already a very cozy situation.

“We learned earlier that there are five different things a ghost can do when they’re trying to get the living out of their house. Possess, haunt, ooze, creep, and kill—”

“I don’t want to kill him,” Lydia said quickly.

“Of course you don’t, kiddo,” JD said, “And anyway, Veronica and I don’t do that.”

Lydia gave him a strange look, and Veronica glared at him, hoping he could hear her telling him to shut up and for the love of god do not say ‘anymore’ without her needing to use words.

“He’s having this big dinner party with some business people about his development. I think that’s when we should do it.”

“We still need to know what to do.”

JD scratched his chin. “Well, if ghosts don’t scare him, what does?”

Lydia shrugged. “I don’t know, socialized property.”

She saw him bite back a laugh, and watched Veronica roll her eyes affectionately at him, and Lydia was pleased that her joke had landed.

“I don’t think we can deliver on that for one dinner party though, anything else?”

She thought hard, looking back on all the times she’d thought her dad might be scared, on every memory she had of him. Finally, she looked up. “He’s scared of being embarrassed. That’s why he hated it when I cried, why he wants me to be happy and normal so bad.”

“He’s a dick,” JD said quickly, earning a glare from Veronica, though it made Lydia smile. “But that’s something we can work with.”

A slow, strange smile was sliding onto Veronica’s face. “We can definitely work with that. It’s been a long time, but I know how to humiliate someone.”

Smiling still felt unnatural, but her muscles were starting to get used to the forgotten shape. To her, it seemed strange that JD and Veronica—who seemed so grown up and normal—would have any kind of history that involved danger or humiliating people, and yet neither seemed at all surprised by any of the odd things she’d said or done. Even her melodramatic suicide attempt, which she was already glad she hadn’t succeeded in, hadn’t seemed to phase them.

Since her mother’s death, she’d been wanting to shock people, putting effort into increasingly bizarre ways of capturing her father’s attention. Being with JD and Veronica was strangely opposite, she already had their attention, and they took the bizarre in stride, which made her want to relax.

“Now,” Veronica said, “I think what we need is something big, but personal. According to the book our powers are strongest in connection to things that mattered to us when we were alive.”

“That explains me and the house,” JD said, “And the cats.” Nostradamus purred as if to illustrate his point.

“Exactly. I think you should make some… subtle changes to the house. Maybe we start with little things; moving doors over by an inch at a time, shifting the floor so that it sits higher or lower, adding stairs where there weren’t any. Just mess with his head a bit, then—”

“No,” Lydia said quickly. “You don’t understand. My dad is dense. Obtuse. Thick. A dunderhead. He won’t notice.” She scowled bitterly. “He never notices anything. If it isn’t big, it won’t work.”

“So, what should we do?”

“We need to ruin his big night. Completely.” He had been in the middle of impressing upon her the importance of this evening, how badly he needed her to behave “normally” for him. She had tried to tell him about JD and Veronica, about ghosts being real, about how her mom might still be out there, but he hadn’t listened. He was too wrapped up in his stupid housing development to care what she had to say.

But this time she was going to make him listen to her.

“These rich people,” Veronica said slowly, “What are they like?”

“They’re all like Delia,” Lydia whined, thinking of the parties her parents had hosted before her mother had died, and about how Delia had wormed her way into the family after the funeral, starting out as a guest of one of those rich people. “Stupid and crazy but not even in the cool way. She talks about spirit guides and vision quests and it all seems appropriative to me.” She crossed her arms and glared.

Veronica was smiling, though Lydia didn’t know what the joke was; she was perfectly serious about Delia. “So, they might believe in ghosts?”

“They might, or they just pretend to so they can tell stories at the dinner table.”

“The worst part of every dinner party is the guests,” JD said sagely.

“So, we make sure they can’t get away from each other,” Veronica said. “Perhaps the afterlife isn’t what Sartre imagined, but he had one thing right; Hell is other people


	4. A Heart Exploding Inside a Chest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been insanely productive on these lately, but school and my internship are starting up this week so it's probably going to slow down a lot. Thank you so much for reading and people who comment are awesome! Enjoy

The day of the party came faster than JD would have liked. He had enjoyed planning their revenge with Lydia, and if all went according to plan, she would be gone soon.

Veronica, of course, was on the same page. “What if she leaves and… well—”

“She tries to hurt herself again?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know,” He answered honestly, hating that he couldn’t solve that problem neatly. “Maybe having her mom back will help and—”

“But what if she doesn’t get her mom back, JD? What if her mom isn’t trapped in her house like we are in ours? The book makes it sound like everyone has a different afterlife that depends on who you were and how you died. There’s no way to know.”

“And if Lydia is wrong and her mom isn’t there…”

“She’ll be devastated, JD. I… I worry about her.”

He had been worried about her too, hating that her near-miraculous recovery after her suicide attempt seemed so conditional. “I know, Veronica. I just don’t know what the other option is. We promised that we would do this, and I think she has a right to try and find out about her mom.”

He knew Veronica could tell he was thinking about his own mother, and how he would have liked to have had the chance to see her again, even if she was a ghost.

“But what if she doesn’t find her, JD? It’s not like she can just come back here after we’ve scared her parents into moving. It might make everything worse.”

“I know,” He admitted. “But I don’t think yet another adult letting her down is going to make anything any better either. We promised we would try this.”

She chewed on her lip, and looked like she was about to argue when Lydia skipped into the room.

She paused as she stared between them. “What’s wrong? You’re not chickening out, are you?” Her clenched jaw and glare said ‘anger’ but JD could see tears forming in her eyes.

Veronica shook her head quickly. “No! Not at all. We were just talking.”

“Good, because I’ve spent all morning being the perfect daughter, so they’ll never know what hit them.” Her smile was impressively evil for a frail-looking fifteen year old; even JD was impressed.

Still, sarcasm was in his nature. “Right. I’m sure they won’t be at all confused or suspicious of your sudden complete change of personality.”

She turned her glare on him. “They would have to pay attention enough to notice it, and anyway I think my dad just thinks Delia’s attempts to fix me are finally working.”

Beneath the cheery exterior, JD caught a hint of that same anger and sadness that always seemed to churn under Lydia’s surface. He wondered if she had secretly wanted them to be suspicious.

“Who picked the dress?” Veronica asked, gesturing to the yellow monstrosity Lydia had donned.

“Delia bought it for me, but I decided to wear it today.” She plucked at a ruffle. “I think I’ll throw it in a wood-chipper when we’re done with this.

Veronica nodded. “I’ll help.”

“What about you?” Lydia asked eagerly. “Are you ready? Do you have all your plans in place?”

“For the most part,” JD said, smiling. “Sometimes the best thing is not to plan too much; we made sure to leave room for spontenaity.”

“Just remember that you _have_ to scare them,” Lydia insisted for the hundredth time since they’d started planning. “They can’t just be uncomfortable, because they’ll ignore it.”

“We know, Lyds, and we’re working on it,” JD said.

“Does the book say anything else?” Lydia said, examining her fingernails in the most obvious bit of feigning disinterest that JD had ever seen.

“Forget about the book,” He said, irritation creeping into his tone. Over the past few days, he had noticed her sneaking looks inside, and for whatever reason, he found her curiosity disturbing. “Save the dead people stuff for dead people.”

“I’ve already told you,” Lydia whined, “I’m basically dead so I might as well read the book!”

“What is it that you think you’ll find in there?” Veronica asked. “It’s nothing but fun facts about ghosts. You can find some of those in any ‘Haunted New England’ book available in tourist shops.”

Lydia frowned. “It’s not just that. There’s all kinds of stuff in there. The other day, I was just flipping through it and I saw something about rituals—”

“Alright, I’m drawing a line,” JD said, standing up. “Absolutely no rituals of any kind in my house.”

“I thought you got married in the house?” Lydia asked. “That’s a ritual, you know, it’s just one that’s been accepted by a patriarchal society so you think that’s okay, but it’s no different than ghost rituals.”

“That was a very compelling argument, Lydia, but technically, Veronica and I got married outside, and I’m still against ghost rituals.”

Lydia was fully sulking now, with arms crossed and eyes rolling, she was something to behold. “I just want to know what it says!”

“And you can find out when you’re older,” Veronica said, stepping in. “Much older. Like… ninety five after you’ve lived a long and fulfilling life.”

“You didn’t live long or fulfilling lives,” Lydia muttered.

They both winced, glancing at each other. They knew they had died young, but sometimes it was easy to pretend that they still had their whole future ahead of them.

“I know,” Veronica said heavily. “That’s why we want you to. Leave the book alone, Lydia. You belong where you are: among the living.”

“Whatever,” She said, turning away so her full yellow skirt fanned out like a tormented flower. “Just make sure you show up for dinner tonight.”

“Lydia!” JD called as she stomped down the stairs.

“Let her go, JD,” She said, sighing. “She’ll get it out of her system and be back.”

He frowned. “Adults ignoring her feelings is how she got like this in the first place!”

“JD, this isn’t the same as that; she needs a chance to cool off. By the time we start getting ready for tonight, she’ll be back, I promise.”

“But—”

“Please trust me to know more about teenaged girls than you do.” She pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes and daring him to challenge her.

“Fine.”

“Besides,” Veronica said, in a remarkably smooth transition. “We still need to perfect voice-throwing.”

“I practiced last night,” He told her, “And I’m getting better. I’m still not as precise as you, but I can fill a room pretty well.”

Veronica beamed. “Well then, I guess invisible doesn’t have to mean powerless, does it?”

* * *

If Lydia had—like JD had suggested—somewhat hoped that her father would acknowledge her change in attitude with anything other than pure relief, she would have been disappointed. Not that she had been hoping that. He saw her in that frilly, yellow monstrosity and had smiled and begun to gush, _gush,_ about how proud he was and how happy it made him that she and Delia were getting along.

She had bared her teeth in an approximation of a smile for the sake of the charade, but her fists were curled up in the silk ruffles on her hem. “I’m _very_ excited for dinner tonight.”

He had only smiled vaguely and gone back to clucking about property taxed while reading his paper.

Delia had reacted with some surprise when she’d seen her, but it had melted into the relieved joy of a child who believed they had gotten school cancelled by sleeping with a spoon under their pillow.

“Lydia, sweetheart, I’m so happy to see you looking so… nice!” It sounded like she had only just barely managed not to say ‘normal’.

“Thanks, Delia,” Lydia said, dragging the words out. “I’m so looking forward to your party tonight!”

Delia had smiled, a real, hopeful smile that made Lydia almost think about feeling guilty. But she ruined it. “Your father will be thrilled that you’re making an effort for his dinner tonight.”

After that, Lydia had stalked out of the room and straight to the attic, where she had hoped to find some enthusiasm for her plan, but JD and Veronica had been acting like normal adults, fighting quietly and then lying about it.

She knew she shouldn’t start something over the book, but why wouldn’t they let her read it? What could be in it that was so bad for her to know? And if there was something in there that might help her find her mom, then she deserved to look at it. It made no sense that JD and Veronica would try to hide that from her. Surely they wanted her to see her mother again?

At least they hadn’t backed out of tonight, which she’d been sure they would for several moments. They were cool for adults, but that didn’t mean they weren’t adults, who inevitably broke the promises they made.

She had nothing to do for the rest of the day, so she sat around her room, mostly moping about the book she couldn’t read and staring at the clock, waiting for the time to come.

“Lydia?” Veronica knocked lightly on the door. “Can we come in?”

“No.” She was being ornery for the sake of it, but she didn’t care.

“Okay,” Veronica replied, “We’ll stay out here. We just wanted to say, before tonight, that we’re only telling you that you can’t read the book because we want you to remember that you’re still alive.”

“After what happened the other day,” JD continued for Veronica, “On the beach, we just want to make sure that you don’t start… I don’t know. You’re alive, Lyds, that’s what’s important. You should want to stay that way.”

 _Well, I don’t,_ She wanted to snap, but it wouldn’t have done any good, and it would have made the conversation last longer. “Okay.”

Somehow, through the door, she sensed that neither of them really believed her. Veronica sighed. “Okay, Lydia. We’ll see you at dinner.”

“See you.” She flopped onto her stomach and picked at the pages of a book, too wired to read.

Her part tonight was simple, but she still felt more nervous than she would have admitted. Nervous was one of those emotions that—like sad—was likely to get her overlooked. Anger was better. Even her father couldn’t completely ignore anger.

Anger would help her more than nervous tonight anyway. She would have to watch her father and all his friends be terrorized by whatever Veronica had come up with, some of which Lydia knew about, and other parts had been kept in the dark. Before her mother had died, it might have made her feel bad, scaring all those people, but now it made her mouth twist into a smile.

“Try ignoring me now,” She muttered, just as the doorbell rang.

* * *

Though they were almost certainly invisible, JD and Veronica were pressing themselves against the wall next to the dining room door as if they might be spotted. Veronica hated creeping around their own house like this, but it felt odd to walk like they knew they couldn’t be seen.

Despite all this, she caught herself smiling as she glanced into the dining room, where the adults were talking and Lydia was staring morosely at a plate that appeared to contain little more than foam and a smattering of carefully constructed vegetables.

She made a mental note to make her a real dinner later and glanced at JD. “Are you ready?”

“Just waiting for my cue,” He said, smiling.

Veronica laughed. “You look too excited about this.”

“C’mon, Veronica, you know how much I like a little chaos. It’s like—”

“What? The good old days? Because I think you and I remember that differently.” She crossed her eyes, frowning.

“Jesus, Veronica, no! I just meant, it’s like what we could have been, back then, if it all hadn’t gotten so fucked up.” He smiled, nudging her arm a little. “Admit you’re having fun.”

He poked her again, and she jabbed him back with a laugh. “Fine, Okay? I am having fun.”

He laughed. “I’ve always wanted to be a poltergeist,” He said, and he leaned forward to catch the light from a lamp and cast dramatic shadows over his face.

She laughed, covering her mouth even though she doubted anyone aside from Lydia would be able to hear her. “JD, Calm your eyebrows. And shh, I can’t hear what they’re saying.”

They quieted so they could listen. Inside, the conversation had somehow turned to ghosts, with one of the guests commenting on her interest in the supernatural.

“This house is haunted,” Lydia said, perking up ever so slightly.

Everyone else at the table turned to look at her as if they’d forgotten she was sitting there. Delia laughed awkwardly. “Now, honey, now’s not the time for jokes. She loves to tell funny little ghosts stories, right Charles?”

Charles looked like he’d been recently woken from a nap. “Yes, um, right. She does do that. Sometimes. A normal amount.”

“I’m not telling stories,” Lydia insisted. “There are ghosts in this house! The guy who built the house and his wife are still here.”

“Lydia, I think that’s quite far enough,” Charles said, his voice low and tense.

“They’re real,” Lydia said. “And they’re angry.”

“Angry?” One of the guests, a pretentious-looking man in the strangest suit JD had ever seen, asked, his plucked eyebrow arching up.

“Lydia,” Delia gave another strained laugh, which everyone ignored.

“They want their house back,” She said. “And they’ll do anything to get it.”

“Lydia,” Her father growled, and Veronica’s hand tensed into a fist. “That’s enough.”

“No!” The pretentious guest said, “Let her speak. Tell me, Lily, if these ghosts are so angry, why aren’t they here?”

“That’s our cue,” JD said.

Veronica smiled. “Let’s haunt this bitch.”

“We are here!” JD said, throwing his voice into the room so it seemed to boom around all the guests, far too loud for the small space. “And we are angry!”

Stifling laughter, Veronica added. “This is our house! And we will take it back!”

“Hell itself spat us back out!” JD shouted, “Do you want to know what it’s like?”

“Oh, great spirits!” One of the guests was shouting, standing up only to prostrate himself onto the ground. “I am your humble servant; punish me not!”

Veronica glanced over and saw that Lydia was pressing a napkin against her lips to stifle her laughter, and the sight made Veronica want to go even further. “It is too late! Your crimes must… um, go unforgiven!”

JD snorted. “Nice recovery,” He muttered, just for her.

She glared, “Fine, if you’re so good, you do it then.”

“With pleasure.” He went back to throwing his voice. “You tried to ruin our house. Tried to take it away from us! For this, you are condemned!”

“What is our punishment, oh great ones?”

“We’re set on the no killing rule, right?” Veronica said, “Because he’s really pissing me off.”

JD ignored her. “I sentence you to each other’s company!” With that, Veronica watched as the walls crashed down, removing the doors and trapping the guests inside.

“NO!” Charles bellowed.

“Anything but that!” Delia was screaming, amid the frantic shrieks of the other guests.

Soon, people were throwing themselves at the wall, screaming.

“Veronica, the food, now!” Lydia hissed.

Veronica nodded, gritting her teeth. Delia’s sparse cooking had left her very little to work with, but she focused on whatever foamy sauce was on each plate, drawing it together until it had formed a small, gelatinous monster, roughly the size of a squirrel.

The little food-foam demon started running around, ruining fancy hairstyles, biting at ankles, and generally making a nuisance of itself. Veronica watched with an odd sense of pride, but was surprised and more than a little horrified when Copernicus leapt out from under the table to chase it, hissing and snarling.

“What the hell is that!” The pretentious guest shouting, having lost all trace of his obsequiousness to pure horror.

“It’s a cat,” Lydia said calmly. Unlike all the others, she hadn’t moved from her seat and watched the chaos with almost eerie calm.

“Lydia,” Her father said, pausing his frantic pounding on the door. “Why aren’t you scared.”

“Because I know this will stop if we promise to leave the house. If we start packing tonight, they’ll leave us alone forever.”

“Leave?” The pretentious guest said, “Are you joking? This place is going to make us rich!”

“What?” Lydia and her father shouted in unison, but with entirely different inflection.

“No!” Lydia shouted, finally showing distress on the same level as the rest of the guests. “That’s—”

“This is a real life haunted house! With magic disappearing doors! It’s a gold mine, Charles, if you sell this place now, we’ll never work together again.”

Charles was beaming. “Of course! I knew about the ghosts all along, you know, I was waiting to make sure the had… a grand entrance, yes. My daughter can commune with them.”

Lydia opened her mouth to say something, but whatever came out was drowned out by the continuing chaos. Veronica reached out for her, but Lydia pulled away.

“This is your fault! You’re the worst ghosts ever!”

“Lydia,” JD said quietly. “This—”

“Didn’t you hear me?” JD went back to throwing his voice, but Veronica could tell they were losing their captive audience. “You’ll be trapped here forever!”

Tears were streaking down Lydia’s face, which was crumpled up in fury. “Just give up! You failed! You just made everything worse!” She ran to the wall where the door had been and started pounding on it, hard enough that Veronica was sure it would hurt. “LET ME OUT!”

Immediately, the room went back to normal. Guests fell into heaps where they had been standing, Copernicus finally caught the food-foam demon, squishing right through it and onto the floor, where he began to wail at the affront of being slightly wet.

“Lydia, wait,” JD said, and he started to go after her.

“You ruined everything!” She shouted, the sound tearing out of a throat that was raw from sobbing. “Just go away!”

“Wait,” Veronica said, “We just have to—”

“I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!”

A bizarre pull yanked at Veronica, and when she opened her eyes—which she hadn’t been aware of closing—she was standing next to JD in the attic.

She looked at him before flopping down onto the couch. “God, JD, what did we do?”


	5. You Won't Believe How Far I'll Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my birthday! Here's an update!

JD and Veronica paced the attic all night, alternatively trying to find comfort in each other, before they bounced away, unable to be still even in each other’s arms.

“We did what she wanted,” JD said for the hundredth time. “We did all that, and… it wasn’t our fault, Veronica.”

“That doesn’t matter. She needs someone to blame.” This was also the hundredth time Veronica had spoken these words, but she didn’t expect them to sink in any time soon. They hadn’t really sunk in for her.

Lydia had banished them to the attic, an ability they hadn’t realized she had, but one that the book said wasn’t unheard of in people who could see ghosts. They had been having this circular conversation ever since.

“But why does it have to be us?” JD said again. “Why not blame her shitty father? Or that greedy bastard who wants to turn our home into some kind of a theme park. Not that anyone will allow it,” He continued, this time on a new point, much to Veronica’s relief.

“What do you mean?”

“What are our friends going to say when they hear someone advertising our house like that? Come see the ghosts of JD and Veronica Sawyer, recently deceased. There’ll be outrage.”

“My god,” Veronica said, almost laughing as she pictured her old editor. “Sasha will can the place with bad press so fast they’ll be blinded.”

“Not to mention Collin and the rest of the guys. They’d lose their minds.”

She thought about their friends, the relationships they’d forged—hesitantly at first—over their time together. It was odd, looking back to realize how many people would be on their side.

Veronica sighed and sat down heavily. “That doesn’t mean Lydia will get what she wants. Things might just get worse for her.”

JD nodded and went to sit next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“Do you think we went too far?” She asked. “Maybe I shouldn’t have animated the food.”

A reluctant laugh escaped JD’s lips, and Veronica smiled at the memory too. “I think that only got so crazy because of the cat.”

“Speaking of, where is Copernicus?”

“Probably with Lydia,” JD answered. “I guess it makes sense that he’d want to be where the living people are.” Nostradamus, loyal past the end, leapt off of the shelf he’d been perched on and wove between their legs affectionately.

“I’m glad someone is keeping her company,” Veronica said, reaching to scratch Nostradamus.

“We could—”

“I think we need to give her more time to cool off,” Veronica said. “She won’t listen to us when she’s still blaming us for everything that went wrong.”

“Technically nothing went wrong. Aside from you going off script with the food monster, we followed the plan to the letter.”

“That’s a pretty big script deviation.” Veronica paused, letting out yet another sigh before she finally voiced the question that had been hovering irritatingly at the back of her mind. “Do you think she hates us? I mean… we keep letting her down.”

JD nodded. “I was wondering that too. We’re trying, but… maybe we weren’t cut out for this.”

Veronica nodded, not wanting to label what exactly ‘this’ was. “So… we could go, I guess. Stop making things worse and just move on. If Lydia can’t go home at least she and her family could live in peace.”

“I don’t know. Think about us at that age. What would you have wanted?”

“Someone to stay,” Veronica said, very quietly.

“No matter how mad I got. No matter what I said. Someone who would come back.”

“So…”

“We’ll go see her in the morning,” JD agreed, before Veronica had even said the words.

They passed into ghost-sleep holding hands, with Nostradamus curled up between them.

When they woke up, they didn’t speak before heading down to Lydia’s room. It was perfectly understood that that was where they needed to go.

“If she’s still asleep,” Veronica said, “I’m making her breakfast before we wake her up. I’m sure she didn’t get enough last night.”

JD nodded absently and knocked on the door. They didn’t get an answer, so he cautiously pushed the door open. Veronica stared in surprise and a twisting, sickly suspicion at Lydia’s empty room. It was messy, though not more than average for a fifteen-year-old, but the bed looked like it had been tossed around by a restless occupant.

“I don’t like this,” JD said.

“I agree, but let’s… She could have gone to the kitchen.”

 _Or the ocean._ Neither of them said it, because neither wanted to bring up that day on the beach, but it hung in the air between them.

“Lydia?” JD called, stepping through the wall into the kitchen. “Are you in here?”

No answer.

“Lydia?” That was Lydia’s father’s voice. Charles was wandering, rather aimlessly, through the first floor of the house, calling his daughter’s name like she was a lost dog.

Veronica, without thinking, waved at him. “Have you seen her this morning?”

Charles walked through them, still looking aimless, completely unaware of their presence. JD shuddered and rubbed his arms. “That wasn’t pleasant.”

“He’s looking for her too,” Veronica pointed out, trying to ignore the odd sensation of being walked through. The fact that she was dead had sunk in—as much as it ever could—but she didn’t appreciate reminders about her insubstantiality.

“We should—”

“Look on the beach,” Veronica finished grimly.

They didn’t hesitate, ignoring doors in favor of passing through a few walls until they were outside, staring out over the sand.

It was too bright for Veronica’s mood, the sun reflecting off of the sand and the ocean until the air was shimmering. “Do you see her?” Veronica held a hand over her eyes, staring into the horizon but seeing no sign of the black-clad, blond figure she was searching for.

“No.”

“Could she have… tried something else?” Veronica’s stomach turned over the horrible idea, but there was no better phrasing.

JD sighed. “I have no idea, and how would we even know?”

“We should talk to her parents.”

“Great idea, except they can’t see us,” JD pointed out.

“Sheets?”

JD frowned, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “Let’s just try yelling at him first.”

Veronica shrugged and nodded. 

They made their way back inside, both throwing frequent looks over their shoulders, just in case Lydia turned up.

She didn’t, and they ended up in the space that JD had used for drafting but was now dominated by a large desk and shelves full of ugly sculptures, giving it the appearance of someone’s office during a fever dream. Charles was sitting at the desk, staring into space.

“Charles Deetz,” JD said, his voice low.

Charles frowned, looking around. “Did someone—”

“Charles Deetz!” JD repeated, louder. This time it was obvious they had his attention, even if he wasn’t looking exactly where they were standing.

“Who’s there?” He stood, his eyes round and bulging as he searched the room frantically.

“The ghosts who haunt your house,” He said, keeping his ‘spooky’ voice going, more for his own amusement. “Lydia told you about us.”

“Lydia? She… I thought she was making things up, she…”

“She wasn’t,” Veronica said flatly. “And we need to talk.”

“But—”

“She wasn’t,” JD repeated. “Now, let’s talk.”

“But—”

“No arguing,” Veronica said, “We’re worried about Lydia.”

“Oh.” Charles sank slowly back into his chair, looking suddenly much older and much sadder. “Did she… do something?”

“She tried,” JD said. “She misses her mother and moving… it didn’t help her.”

“I know,” He answered. “I didn’t know what else to do, she’s been so strange since her mother died. I just don’t know how to make her happy again.”

“Well first of all,” JD said, cutting Veronica off. “Stop talking like that. She isn’t going to be happy again, not until she’s been allowed to grieve, which, by the way, you aren’t letting her do.”

“But—”

“No,” Veronica was taking her turn now. “Lydia is scared and sad, and—”

“She’s angry!” Charles insisted, “She doesn’t act sad! She acts like she thinks it’s my fault that Emily—” His voice cut off, not quite breaking.

“Christ,” JD muttered, clearly not feeling up to catering to this man’s feelings, Veronica agreed with him. “Of course she’s angry, that’s basic, five stages of grief shit. You stopped trying to reach her, and pawned the job off on your… wife? Are the two of you even married?”

“Technically,” He said, and opted not to elaborate, not that Veronica cared much either way.

“Right, well, she obviously wants your attention, and she’s willing to do some pretty crazy shit to get it.”

“That doesn’t—”

“Charles,” Veronica said, “Stop. You need to—”

“I’m grieving too!” He shouted, suddenly, almost ridiculously, angry.

“And?” JD said, giving no sympathy. “She’s your kid. Your fifteen-year-old kid. This is the worst thing that ever has, and hopefully ever will happen to her, so it’s your fucking job to put your shit to the side so you can help her with hers.”

Veronica reached out and squeezed JD’s hand, realizing that he wasn’t exactly talking to Charles anymore, but confronting some of his own, long-buried issues. He was breathing hard, though neither of them needed it anymore.

“It’s not that easy,” Charles said, his anger fading as quickly as it had appeared, as though the effort of shouting once had drained all his remaining energy.

“It has to be,” Veronica said. “She needs people who are going to be there for her.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles said, “But I can’t help you. I want to but…”

JD sighed and turned away. Veronica followed him, but just before she walked through the wall, she turned back to glare at Charles. “You don’t deserve her. He crossed the room and stole a pen and paper from Charles’s desk. Scrawling a name and phone number on it. “This is a therapist in the city. Tell him Jason Dean recommended him. He’ll be able to help her.”

Once outside the study, they didn’t make any moves to return to the attic. Somehow that felt like admitting defeat. Instead, they drifted wordlessly back to Lydia’s room. “Lydia? Are you in here?”

“Go away.”

“Lydia, we’ve been looking for you,” Veronica admonished. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, jeez, just leave me alone?”

JD frowned at Veronica. “Give her more time, I guess?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

Accepting that they had lost this round of whatever was happening, they went back up to the attic.

Still moping, they didn’t speak as they found seats among their old stuff.

“Hey, that’s odd,” JD said. “I left the book right here.”

Veronica crossed the room to stare at the unoccupied side table that was crowded next to a stack of boxes. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I know I left it sitting here.” He turned to Nostradamus, who had curled up on one of the boxes. “Have you seen the book?”

Nostradamus gave them the kind of disapproving look only a cat could give.

Veronica frowned. “I don’t like this.”

* * *

If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself. It was the sort of thing her father would have said, back when he still spoke to her, as a bit of fatherly advice tossed over a newspaper if she complained about school group projects gone wrong. After last night’s disaster, Lydia was sure this advice was absolutely correct.

She wanted to like JD and Veronica, wanted to believe that they had done their best, but their best wasn’t good enough, and things for Lydia would only get worse if her father tried to turn their home into a magical haunted theme park.

Bitterly, she thought that her mother would have loved to live in a place like that, but of course if she’d lived, they never would have found this one in the first place.

Still turning grim thoughts over in her head, Lydia waited patiently for the sound of JD and Veronica making their way to her room. Predictably, they were there in the morning, probably as soon as they’d woken up. Assuming ghosts slept, that is.

Copernicus stirred from his place on her bed, jumping up when she touched the windowsill. After one last glance at the door, out her window onto the porch roof, and then very carefully, using the windowsills and dormers she didn’t want to picture JD carefully designing, she climbed up onto the widow’s watch. After a moment of quiet swearing, she managed to detach her lace skirt from the splintered wood railing and climbed into the attic.

It was eerily quiet and still. _This is a place for dead things._ The thought popped into her head, unbidden and unwanted and she shoved it away.

She was on a mission. With Copernicus still at her side, she stepped further into the silence.

The book was sitting on a table, thoughtlessly abandoned, but in the morning sun that cut through the dusty air, it seemed to have a preternatural glow. She stepped over piles of junk and discarded furniture until she was standing in front of it.

A low, eerie, chirping sound cut the air and made her jump. Next to the book, she saw a cat watching her. This was the other one, the ghost cat that she sometimes caught glimpses of around JD and Veronica. Copernicus jumped up to perch beside him, leaving them standing like statues, watching her every move.

“Hi,” She said quietly. “I’m just here to borrow this.”

The cats stared, Nostradamus’s tail shifting back and forth like the ticking of a clock as he watched her though too-intelligent eyes. They reminded her of the cats she’d seen in the Egypt section of the museums, the ones that guarded the Pharaoh’s tomb.

“It’s important,” She insisted, not sure why she felt the need to explain herself to a cat of all things. “I need this to see my mom.”

She half expected one or both of them to swipe at her hand when she placed it cautiously on the book’s faded cover. Neither did, and they took no action when she picked it up and tucked it into the waistband of her skirt.

Copernicus even jumped off of the box to join her, but he no longer felt like a companion in her adventures, but like a guard sent to watch the book and make sure she didn’t lose it.

She could still feel Nostradamus’s eyes on her as she retreated, just before climbing out the window, she looked back at him. “I’ll bring it back.” Even to her own ears, she sounded guilty.

She was back in her room with time to spare, digging through the pages with enthusiasm, searching for the page that would tell her what she most needed to know.

It didn’t take long to find the rituals chapter, and she had just turned to begin her quest, heart pounding and skin damp with sweat, when JD and Veronica knocked.

It was tempting not to respond, for right at her fingertips were the very secrets they had denied her, the key to her happiness that they had refused, but instead, she repeated her words from the ill-fated dinner party. “Go away!” 

“Lydia, we’ve been looking for you,” Veronica said, voice muffled by the door. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t want their sympathy. Didn’t need their useless pity. She didn’t need them at all. “I’m fine, jeez, just leave me alone!”

They shuffled away, and she squinted at the pinching pain behind her eyes. She didn’t need them. She would have what she really needed soon enough.


	6. Never Going to Regret This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope this gets more comments than the last thing I posted because the lack of engagement is getting really exhausting. Enjoy!

“Veronica, I just don’t think we should dive right into a confrontation here,” JD said.

“JD, the book is gone. The one thing we said ‘do not touch’ and she fucking took it! We have no idea what’s in there, what she might find if she digs around!”

He nodded, recognizing the danger. “She might just be curious,” He offered lamely.

Veronica barely dignified him with a glare. “We know what she wants: her mom back. She thinks the way to get that is in that book.”

“We don’t know what she’s thinking,” He cautioned her. “She’s grieving, and scared, and after last night, I’m sure she has a lot in her head. We have to take this slow.”

“We need the book back,” Veronica said, knowing that she wasn’t really disagreeing with him. “It’s dangerous.”

“I’m not saying it isn’t, I just think we’re already on the verge of losing her completely, and if she thinks we’re mad at her—”

“Then what do you suggest?”

He shrugged. “Steal it back?”

“Right, great idea. We’ll steal it back and never bring up the fact that she stole a ghost manual. Hopefully she learns her lesson and never does it again.” Her level of sarcasm was higher than it necessarily needed to be, but she was starting to feel frantic. What was in that book? How long would it take Lydia to find something dangerous?

JD tensed. “I didn’t mean it like that, but—”

“We should talk to her,” Veronica interrupted, cutting JD off before he could suggest something. “Give her the chance to explain first.”

“But if we just take it back, then we never have to—”

“JD.” Veronica gave him a level stare. “I’m still not convinced we can do this. But I also don’t think we have a choice.”

“Lydia needs us,” He agreed, “I’m just not sure that a confrontation is the way to go.”

“Who said anything about a confrontation? We lost our book and we’re looking for it. Maybe Lydia has seen it.” She smiled slyly.

JD laughed and pulled her into a kiss. “You’re a genius. And you really are good at this.”

She rolled her eyes a little, secretly extremely pleased. “Let’s get this over with.”

They held hands as they walked down, Nostradamus trailing behind them. It felt strange to go back down so soon after Lydia had told them to go, but that had been before they’d known about the book. Perhaps waiting would have been the right thing to do, but Veronica had some experience with the urgency of a teenaged girl’s mind; if Lydia had the book, she would use it as soon as possible.

“Lydia?” JD said, knocking on the door, much calmer than Veronica felt. “We need to talk to you.”

“Didn’t I just tell you to go away?” Lydia’s voice was sulky, but Veronica could hear her footsteps on the floor.

The door creaked as it opened, revealing a Lydia who was rather worse for wear. There was a suspicious tear in her skirt where the lace hung raggedly, and her pale hair was mussed, and not in the dramatic, intentional way Veronica was used to.

“What?” She said, crossing her arms and frowning.

“Lydia, we were just up in the attic—”

“What else is new?” She muttered.

Veronica bit back some sarcasm of her own, already tired of the attitude. “We can’t find the book,” She said, losing patience. “Have you seen it.”

Lydia’s eyes narrowed. “What book?”

“The dead people book,” JD jumped in, probably sensing Veronica’s mounting tension. “We must have left it lying around.”

“Why would I know where it is?” She asked, shrugging carelessly.

Through the open door, Veronica could see Copernicus perched on Lydia’s bed, watching the exchange with interest. _What do you know?_ She wanted to ask him.

JD tried again. “I know you were interested in the book—”

“Do you think I took it?” She snapped.

“We’re not accusing you of anything,” JD said, and his voice was very parental somehow, and completely failed to convince her that he wasn’t, in fact, accusing Lydia of something. “We just—”

“I didn’t take your stupid book,” Lydia snapped.

“Do you have any idea where it is?” Veronica said, sharper than she’d meant to but frustrated with what felt like very defensive lies. “It’s not where we thought we left it.”

Lydia shrugged again. “It’s not my fault you can’t keep track of your shit.”

Both JD and Veronica leaned back a little, surprised at the swear. “Lydia,” JD said slowly, “We’re just—”

“Just coming down here to accuse me of stealing your stupid book which I only asked about because I wanted to talk to my dead mom again. Thanks, you made everything so much better.” She turned on her heel and slammed the door behind her, leaving them staring at the painted wood in surprise.

“And I didn’t take your book!” She shouted through the door, and Veronica heard the hard, hallow sound of heavy boots stomping on wooden floors.

* * *

The book was under her pillow, and when Lydia lifted it up, she almost expected it to be smoldering, burned away by all her lies.

Copernicus was looking at her, his eyes empty and yet accusing.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she muttered, glaring at him. “I need this. They gave me no choice.”

And really, they hadn’t. She had asked nicely. She tried to force her dad’s hand, tried to make him move back home, had tried to get the book from JD and Veronica—just to look at it!—the easy way, but they had refused.

She didn’t want to steal anything. Before her mom had died, she had liked to do weird, wild things, but never anything illegal. Her teachers thought she was odd, but she never broke the rules. But she had to.

They had left her no choice. She picked up the book, which felt warm in her hands, and almost alive, like it was breathing. Through her confusion, she found it ironic that a book about being dead would feel like this, but she didn’t have time to linger on it.

The pages were old and brittle, smelling pleasantly of dust and glue. Her mother had loved old books. She wondered if JD and Veronica liked old books too. They seemed like the type of people who would.

 _Don’t think about them,_ She reminded herself. _This is their fault._

The first several pages were about death and dying. She skipped those easily, but stopped to linger over the sections about haunting, wondering if JD and Veronica had skipped anything.

“Possession?” She whispered, reading the passage over again. “Why wouldn’t they mention that?” She looked at Copernicus and he stared back, answerless.

That would have scared her dad. She knew it, just as sure as she knew that this book would lead her back to her mother. JD and Veronica had, for whatever reason, lied about something they could do, and had therefore sabotaged her attempt to scare her father.

“I knew they didn’t want me to see her,” She seethed, digging further into the book while Copernicus looked on.

It was hours later that she emerged from a deep dive that left her feeling old and tired. Her father was calling her for dinner.

And she had what she needed.

* * *

It was JD’s idea to go to dinner that night. They didn’t need it, and Veronica was right about the smell that was coming from the vegan quinoa lasagna that Delia had prepared, but he refused to let it keep him away.

“I’m worried about her,” He said, repeating the sentiment that they’d been batting back and forth at each other like it was a tennis match. “And now that she has the book—”

“I know,” Veronica said, looking just as tired as he felt.

“Death is exhausting,” He whispered, pulling her close to him.

“This kid is exhausting,” Veronica replied, sighing and resting her head on his shoulder. “But you’re right. We’ll go to dinner and try to talk to her again.”

He wished he believed that there would be more of a point to this conversation than there had been to their last one with Lydia, but he had many doubts.

Neither of them believed that she didn’t have the book, a fact which Nostradamus had seemed to confirm when he’d returned from looking in on Lydia. JD had sent him just because he was worried, and the cat had returned, bringing with him feelings of intense disapproval.

“Whatever he saw,” Veronica had said, “He didn’t like it.”

When they got downstairs, the Deetz family—such as it was—was already seated around the table. Lydia looked stiff and uncomfortable, and angry as always.

Charles seemed to be trying to reach out to her, and JD felt a little stab of pride that at least one of their interventions had worked.

“How was your day?” He asked almost garishly cheerful.

“Bad,” Lydia said.

Charles swallowed hard. “Well, listen, I was thinking, this place doesn’t have a basement, but how about we try to find a space for you to set up a darkroom like you had at the old place? We could build a shed for it if we need to.”

“My whole life is a dark room,” Lydia replied disinterestedly.

“Lydia,” Charles said, attempting a laugh, which Delia joined awkwardly. “Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“No.” She shifted in her seat, glaring at the table.

“I’m trying, Lydia,” He whispered, voice strained. “What do you want me to do.”

“I don’t want you to do anything,” Lydia said, still not looking at her father. “I just want to go home.”

“This is our home now. It’s our fresh start.”

Next to him, Veronica twitched a little and reached for his hand, something sad and far away in her eyes.

“Well, I don’t want it,” Lydia snapped. “I want to go home, and I want mom back.” Her voice cracked, nearly vanishing at the end of the sentence.

Lydia’s father frowned, closing his eyes and breathing loudly through his nose. “You have Delia now, Lydia.”

JD expected a reaction from Lydia, but it came from Delia first. “Wait, now, I don’t want—”

“She’s not my mother!” Lydia snapped viciously, standing up, her eyes furious. “Why are you trying to pretend nothing’s wrong?”

“Lydia, things are different now—”

“But they don’t have to be!” Lydia was desperate now, leaning over the table. “I can get her back. The ghosts—”

“Enough about the ghosts, Lydia!”

JD stepped into the room; not sure he could help but knowing he had to try. “Lydia—”

“STOP!” She grabbed the book, which she’d apparently been sitting on. “I know you lied to be about your powers! Know what’s in this book!”

“Lydia, wait—” Veronica said, stepping out. “That book is dangerous. Just set it down and we can talk.”

“I don’t want to talk,” Lydia said. “I want to see my mom!”

“That book might not be able to do that, though,” JD said. “Just take a second to.”

“NO! I’m sick of waiting, sick of talking! I want my mom and I’m going to go get her!”

Veronica reached forward, trying to grab the book from Lydia’s hands, but she snatched it away, running away from them to stand in the corner. “Why don’t you want me to see her again?”

JD felt a yank on his heart. “I know how hard this is, Lydia,” He said. “I’ve missed my mom every day since she died. I know you’re mad, I know you’re sad, I know you’re scared, but whatever you’re thinking about doing, it’s not going to make it better.”

“You don’t know that! You don’t know anything about me. This is the only way I can see her again!” Her voice cracked again, falling to pieces as she cried. “I have to do this.”

“Wait!”

She opened the book and started to read.

_I’ve read the book. I know my fate._

_And what I need is a gate_

_One that opens, nice and wide_

_A gate that leads to the other side_

A blinding flash of purple light shattered the room, and JD stepped away on instinct, reaching for Veronica who grabbed his hand and held on tight.

“Lydia!” Charles shouted, but Lydia was staring into the wide square of light.

“What are you doing?” JD shouted over the roaring in his ears. “Lydia!”

She ignored him. “I have to do this,” She repeated. “It’s the only way.”

“Don’t!” Veronica shouted. “Lydia, you can’t go in there!”

“I told you!” Lydia shouted. “I said I was nearly dead! This proves it!”

“What is that?” Delia shouted. “What’s happening?”

JD ran over the many things that had happened, trying to make sense of it all. “I’m not sure. I think—”

“She opened a door that will take her to… wherever ghosts are supposed to be,” Veronica interrupted. She looked at JD, her eyes dark, shining, and horrified in the weird, uncomfortable light.

“You can’t go in there, Lydia,” JD begged. “You don’t know what will happen. You might not be able to come back.”

When Lydia looked back at him, she looked small, young, and very, very scared. “I can’t keep living like this.”

With that, she ran into the light and vanished.


	7. Don't Go To The Netherworld

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a lot easier to work on than Watching Supernovas so it got done faster. Content warning for discussion of suicide. Obviously not in favor of, but be aware of your triggers, as this might be a bit upsetting. Other than that, Enjoy!

“LYDIA!” Charles bellowed, lunging towards the still-open portal. JD grabbed him, surprising himself when he didn’t fall right through the living man.

“Don’t!” He snapped. “If you go through there, you might die.”

“But—” Charles gestured helplessly at the space where Lydia had been standing.

“We’ll go,” Veronica said. “We’ll bring her back.”

“Veronica,” JD said slowly, “I’m not sure it works like that. We may not be able to come back from wherever that leads.”

But Veronica forced herself to shrug flippantly. “Of course we can, it’ll be like that one myth. We’ll go to the underworld, get Lydia, and come home. Easy.”

“Veronica, Orpheus didn’t get Eurydice; that’s a very important part of the story.”

“Whatever,” Veronica shrugged again, shaking the panic away. “We’ll bring her back.”

She wasn’t sure if she could keep that promise to Charles, but she was willing to die again trying, and she knew JD was too.

“Emily,” Charles said, sounding like it took his last breath. “She’s looking for Emily Deetz.”

Nodding, Veronica grabbed JD’s hand and led him towards the portal, which was rapidly shrinking. “We’ll be back soon!” She called, and dove into the light, clinging to JD the whole time.

They landed on ground that felt like nothing. She had pictured dirt, hard packed into caves and tunnels, or perhaps a large, obsidian palace.

Instead, the floor was smooth and plain and nothing else. The material so boring that it didn’t appear to be anything at all, not wood, or stone, or brick. Just… floor.

Though there were no lamps or candles or Jean Cocteau arms bearing torches, the room had light.

“This is…” JD stared, looking around. “This is death?”

Veronica shrugged. “I guess so.” The space was wide and led further into wherever they were but was conspicuously empty. “Where’s Lydia?”

JD immediately started calling for her, but Veronica knew instinctively that it was pointless.

“I don’t think she’s here anymore,” Veronica said.

JD stopped shouting Lydia’s name long enough to stare at her. “What do you mean? We just got here.”

“This is death,” Veronica said, not sure where this information was coming from. “Who says they have the same time we do down here?”

“So… Lydia could be anywhere?”

Veronica shook her head, ignoring the strange, tugging feeling in her chest that meant that her heart would be pounding if it was still beating. “No. We know she’s looking for her mother. We’ll find her that way.”

They held hands as they continued down the long hallway. Neither of them asked where they were going, or what they would find there, but Veronica sensed that they were both wondering.

Eventually, the hallway opened to a cavernous waiting room, stuffed with strange looking people who all barely acknowledged their entrance.

This room had bright, flickering fluorescents hanging from the ceiling, and Veronica saw that JD looked… different. His face had tire tracks running down one side, and his arm was streaked with yellow road paint, and what looked like bits of glass were stuck in his hair, sparkling in the light.

The way he was staring at her told her that she looked different too, perhaps enough to match with the rest of the dead in the room.

“It’s how we died,” Veronica murmured, touching one of the glass shards, which seemed fused with the ends of JD’s hair.

He nodded. “I want to go home.”

“We will,” Veronica vowed. “Soon.”

They turned back to the room but were interrupted when a voice cut through the heavy silence in the room.

“Well, look what the grim reaper _finally_ dragged in.”

Veronica turned slowly, placing the voice immediately, though it had been over ten years since she’d heard it. “Heather.”

* * *

Lydia walked into the nothing with no clear idea of where she was going. She knew she was looking for her mother, but she had not done this with a clear plan on how she would go about it.

She had read the book nearly cover to cover while trying to find the spell that would take her to the Netherworld and had found very little information about what it was like. Now she was there, and it rather reminded her of a train terminal, except there were no trains, just a huge expansive room full of benches. Set into the walls of the room were hundreds of windows and counters, where the dead would go to ask for information, Lydia supposed.

None of the ghosts were staring at her, which she expected, but she still felt like an outsider, as if her live-ness was a smell that was clinging to her and everyone she passed was thinking about it. 

She stepped up to the nearest counter. “Um, hello?”

The ghost on the other side turned around, and Lydia stepped back, startled. He had a neat, perfect hoofprint in the exact center of his forehead, and his eyes were like a Picasso painting.

“Can I help you?” He said, in a voice like gravel in a garbage disposal.

Lydia swallowed. “Um, I’m trying to… I want to locate someone. She’s dead.”

“We’re all dead here, sweetie,” The ghost said. “Name?”

“Um, her name is Emily Deetz?”

“And your name?”

“Lydia Deetz.”

She tried not to look or act anxious as he searched through files which appeared to be built into the wall behind him.

After what might have been hours or millennia, he turned around. “Lydia Deetz, you said?”

“Yes.” Lydia said, trying to sound sure. She wasn’t sure anymore, though. Something felt very wrong.

“Nothing here for anyone by that name,” He said.

“Well—”

He did not give her a chance to explain, instead he pressed an alarm button and began to shout. “WE’VE GOT A LIVE ONE! THERE IS A LIVE ONE IN THE NETHERWORLD! I REPEAT: THERE IS A BREATHER IN THE NETHERWORLD!”

Lydia was about to make a run for it—though she had no idea where she might have gone—when another voice cut off the screaming.

“Oh, for death’s sake, Harold, stop that. It’s the third time this quarter.” The speaker emerged from one of the other counters, further down. She had a kindly smile and a generally motherly air. “Don’t mind him, he sends up that alarm all the time, just come with me and we’ll get it all sorted out.”

Lydia nodded mutely and followed her. She’d had no idea there were any doors here, but her guide showed her one that led past the offices behind the counters and into a small conference room of sorts.

“Would you like anything to eat?” The woman offered. “Something to drink?”

Remembering the many stories about the Fae her mother had told her, Lydia shook her head. “No, thank you.”

“Well then,” She said, taking a seat. “What happened with Harold?”

“I—I—I—” But Lydia was, at last, all out of ideas. “He was right,” She said, dropping her head into her hands. “I’m alive!”

“Well of course you are,” The woman said, unaffected. “But what brings you here? I don’t think it’s possible to be alive in the Netherworld by accident. Truthfully, I didn’t think it was possible to be alive in the Netherworld at all, for all the fuss they make about it during training.”

“Um, I was… I came here looking for someone.” Her throat was suddenly very dry, and—Faerie curses aside—Lydia wished she’d accepted the earlier offer.

The woman nodded in a way that was kind and also brusque. “Was this person alive when they came to the Netherworld as well?”

“No,” Lydia replied, very quietly.

Suddenly, the woman slowed, her businesslike demeanor slipped away, and she sat opposite Lydia, fixing her with a deeply sad stare. Avoiding eye contact, Lydia stared at the ends of her hair, which were pitch black, a sharp contrast to the yellow blond of the rest of it.

“You followed someone who died?” The words were soft, gentle almost, and Lydia felt an aching stab behind her stomach, the place where grief always hurt the worst.

“Yes.” She could only barely manage the one word without crying.

The woman nodded. “Who was it?”

“My m-m-m—” This time, she couldn’t finish the word.

“Your mother?” The woman supplied kindly.

Lydia just nodded and wondered if there were tissues in the Netherworld.

“It was very brave of you to come here,” She said, and Lydia could sense the ‘But’ coming before she said it. “But I don’t think you should go any further.”

“But!”

She continued as though Lydia hadn’t tried to protest. “The living don’t belong here. Choosing death… It isn’t wise, Lydia.”

She glared. “I had to! I had no choice; I tried everything else!”

“I was like you, a long time ago,” The woman said. “It all seems so silly now. I had so many choices, and I’ve had who knows how long down here to contemplate what else I could have done. Don’t make that mistake, Lydia.”

“You… killed yourself?” Lydia asked.

“Yes,” She said. “Not my wisest choice.”

“It’s not the same. I’m not killing myself; I’m just coming down here to see my mom.”

“This isn’t really a place you visit,” The woman said, not unkindly. “Have you thought about what will happen if you find her? What will you do?”

“I…” Truthfully, she hadn’t thought about it. She had fixated on finding a way to get here, to see her mother, to get a hug, an apology, another conversation, but then what? Would she just go home, where her mother would still be dead? Or would she stay here?

“You can’t stay alive down here,” The woman said. “If you stick around, you’ll die.”

“But…”

“Which is why I’m telling you this, Lydia. Go home. Go home while you’re still breathing, while you still have a choice.”

“I don’t have a home,” Lydia tried to explain. “My home was where she was and she’s… she’s gone, she’s here, I have to find her.” She was crying now, and the scratchy sleeves of her dress did little to stave the flow of tears.

“Lydia, I’m begging you not to make the choices I made. If I had known all of this back then, if I had known what death was, I wouldn’t have done it. I never would have…”

“Did you have a family?” She asked.

“Yes. I had people who probably missed me. I had a _life_ , Lydia, and that’s a terrible thing to waste.”

She didn’t want to think about the people who would miss her if she never came back. Her father, JD, Veronica, even Delia might shed a tear. She didn’t like to think of Copernicus, who would sit on her bed and wait for her. 

“Why did you do it then?”

“I was depressed. I thought I had no choices, but I’ve found that there are always choices. You learn a lot when you speak to the dead, Lydia. They helped me understand, too late, what might have been. That’s why I’m trying to help you understand now.”

She took a long, deep breath that she didn’t need, during which Lydia held hers, waiting for however she would finish.

“If I had known everything I’ve come to learn, I would have lived for so long, Lydia. I never would have done what I did. I would have laughed, danced, fought, raged, _survived_ , because that is what life is.”

Lydia nodded slowly, scanning the room. “But I’ve already come this far,” She whispered. “I have to find her.”

Before the woman could react, Lydia was up and running through a door in the back of the room which would hopefully lead her somewhere else, somewhere she could find her mother, or someone else who might be fore helpful than this burned-around-the-edges woman.

“Wait!” The woman called after her, but Lydia was gone, through the door and slamming it behind her without a backward glance.

* * *

“Heather?” JD said slowly, staring at the unmistakable, impossible figure.

He had not remembered her like this. To him, whenever he thought about her, she was a girl in a pale pink bathrobe, a sneer on her face and disdain in her voice.

Now that she was dead, she was… strange. Her lips were blue, and the stain spread up her cheek like spilled cobalt ink. Her eyes, which Veronica had mentioned were steely and gray were the same electric blue as the stain, though they almost glowed from within. Her hair was piled strangely on her head, still fashionable, and yet bizarre.

“I can’t believe this,” She said, mostly to Veronica. She was staring, her eyes both horrified and fascinated. “You’re together.”

Veronica looked at JD and he shrugged, not sure what to say.

“Heather,” Veronica started again, “I can’t… I mean—”

“You know you two should really—” She stopped midsentence, her eyes catching on something. “Is that a fucking wedding ring?”

“Um…”

“You _married_ that creep? Veronica Sawyer, I knew you were pathetic, but this is a new low.”

“It’s not like that, Heather,” Veronica attempted, while JD remained silent, because there simply were no words for this situation. “I mean, it wasn’t like we just—”

“Killed me and then eloped? Oh, no, I know. See, I ran into some old friends of ours a while back. Nice work with them, by the way.”

“Wait,” JD interrupted, finally finding his voice. “Kurt and Ram are here?”

Heather rolled her eyes. “Of course they’re here. They’re dead! Just like I am, thanks to you.”

“Heather, I’m really—”

“Veronica, I swear to death if you say that you’re sorry, I’ll feed you to a sandworm.”

“What the fuck is a sandworm?”

“And you,” Heather rounded on him, “Who the hell do you think you are? Killing someone’s best friend and then marrying them! What the fuck kind of person does that?”

“Heather,” Veronica said again, and JD began to remember why he’d hated that name so much for so long. “JD and I haven’t been together since… what happened. It was… I mean, we broke up, and then ten years later—”

“Oh, ten years went by? Is that how long it took you to forget what you did to me? Tell me, in those ten years, did you go to college? Get a job? Buy a house? I bet that was nice. See, I never got to do those things because YOU FUCKING MURDERED ME!”

Heather paused, shaking her head a little. “But it’s fine. I’m over it.”

“Right,” Veronica said, “Well, it’s been nice… catching up, but we really have to—”

“Leaving so soon?” Heather said, “I thought we were just getting started. I have so much more I want to say about how you ended my life in my prime.”

“No, we didn’t, Heather.” JD said, and barreled on before either of them could interrupt. “We ended it well before your prime. What we did was horrible, and unfair, and cruel. And I know it’s worth nothing, but I really am sorry. It wasn’t, to tell you the truth, it was an accident.”

“You handed me a cup of liquid drainer and dared me to take a gulp.”

“Yeah, which I thought would make you sick! I didn’t expect you to die instantly!” From what he’d read later, that wasn’t actually a very common response, even to stronger poisons. “We did a stupid thing, and I’m sorry. You were a kid and you didn’t deserve that.”

She glared for a moment before shrugging. “Well, we’re all dead now, and I can torment you for as long as I see fit.”

“Actually, Heather,” Veronica said, “You can’t right now. See, we were doing fine as ghosts, but then something happened, and we came down here to get this girl—”

“Oh my god, do you have a kid? Did you have a kid with this freak?” Heather’s outrage made the blue on her cheek appear even brighter.

“No!” Veronica said, cutting off what was sure to be quite the tirade. “She’s not our kid. Her family moved into the house we were haunting.”

Clearly no longer interested in Lydia’s plight, Heather shrugged. “Well she’s fine here. This is really where the dead belong; being a ghost is pretty niche.”

“I like being a ghost,” JD said, which earned him a glare from Veronica before she continued.

“See, Heather, that’s the thing. Lydia isn’t… she’s not exactly… Dead.”

“What.”

“Lydia isn’t dead.”

“Then how in death’s name did she end up here?”

“She stole this book—”

“You let a breather get her hands on a handbook?” Heather laughed. “You two are so fucked when management catches up with. Never mind being scared of your victims, the Death Government is going to flip! You’re both worm food!” She laughed cruelly, her smile gleaming.

“She stole it,” JD repeated. “And we need to get her back before—”

“Before she’s stuck down here?”

“Exactly!” Veronica said, “How long does that take?”

Heather snorted. “How the hell should I know? I’ve never seen a breather down here. I didn’t even think the living could get in.”

JD tugged at his hair. “This is a mess.”

“Oh, wait,” Heather said, “Actually, Harold mentioned earlier that there was a breather here, he set off his alarm and everything.”

“And you didn’t think to start with that?” JD muttered.

Heather narrowed her eyes at him. “I didn’t. I guess drain cleaner messed up my memory.”

He gave Veronica a look. _Hard to talk back to someone you killed._

She attempted a smile in response, but her face was clouded with worry. “Did you see what happened after Harold pulled the alarm?”

Heather shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Heather,” JD said through his teeth, trying not to be furious. “Lydia is fifteen years old. Younger than you were. I get that you’re pissed at us, and when we’ve dealt with this you can feed us to worms or whatever the fuck you were talking about, but right now, we need help.”

A tiny, barely visible expression passed over Heather’s face, something like sympathy, or sadness.

“Alice would know,” Heather finally said. “She usually deals with newcomers that cause trouble.”

The name made JD’s heart twist strangely, but he forced himself not to think about it. The chances were too small. How many dead women were named Alice at this point anyway?

They crossed the enormous room and stepped through a narrow door between two of the counters.

JD froze as soon as they crossed the threshold, and Veronica ran into him hard enough that it might have hurt if he’d been able to think about anything other than the woman sitting at the table in front of him.

He had to swallow several times before he managed to say anything. “Mom?”


	8. Mom I've Got My Heart in My Hands

She was a little burned around the edges. Her hair, which he remembered long and blond, was jagged around her shoulders and charred black at the ends. Her skin was streaked slightly with soot, but she was otherwise unchanged.

She looked exactly as she had when he had last seen her, waving from the window of a condemned library.

“Jason?”

Behind him, Veronica breathed. “Holy shit.”

“How cute,” Heather said, “A reunion.”

“Heather,” Veronica said, her voice low and dangerous. “Shut the fuck up.”

His mom stepped forward, a little awkwardly, hesitating before she opened her arms. He hesitated too, but finally allowed himself to walk towards her and accept the hug.

“You’re so young,” She whispered, holding him at arm’s length so she could examine his face. “Car accident?” She tsked and shook her head.

“Mom,” He repeated stupidly, still dumbfounded. “I can’t… I mean…”

The thought had occurred to him, abstractly, that now that he was dead, he could go talk to her, could ask any of the hundreds of questions that had kept him awake since he was thirteen years old, but he hadn’t considered it seriously.

The idea of speaking to her, facing her after all these years had been too overwhelming for it to be a real possibility, and he’d been so caught up with Lydia—

Lydia. She was why he was here in the first place. “I can’t—” He looked desperately at Veronica, his anchor. “We need to find Lydia.”

She reached out and squeezed his hand. “We have a minute.”

“Lydia?” His mother asked, “The little living girl?”

“Yes! That’s her! Have you seen her?” JD leaned forward final grasping on something that wasn’t his complete astonishment at seeing _her_ again.

“She was in here earlier, but I’m afraid she ran away. She said she was looking for—”

“Her mother,” Veronica finished. “We know.”

“So she isn’t…” His mom hesitated, “Yours?”

Heather snorted. “I thought so too, but apparently they died childless. Just like me.” She glared at them.

“We said we were sorry,” Veronica muttered.

“Oh, well that makes it all better, doesn’t it?”

His mother’s face was creased with confusion and he shrugged, not wanting to admit to her that he’d maybe kind of committed a couple murders.

Skipping over that, he gestured to Veronica. “Um, mom, this is Veronica. My wife.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.” Veronica waved. He could sense her discomfort and appreciated that she was at least putting in some effort to sound normal. 

She smiled sadly. “So many things I missed, but I’m thrilled you’re here now; we can catch up.”

JD sighed, pushing away the ache that lingered in his stomach. “I can’t, Mom. I need to find Lydia.”

“Jason, I don’t think you understand… She ran through that door—”

“Is she still alive?” Veronica interrupted.

“Yes, I think so. This whole thing is unprecedented, but if she made it here alive, the fields won’t kill her immediately but… well, you may never find her.”

“What do you mean?” JD hated vagueness, hated that his mother wouldn’t meet his eyes, hated the sick feeling in his stomach.

“The fields… that’s where some of the dead go. There are lots of places, and they all look different, but the fields… It’s like wandering into outer space, or Idaho: vast and empty for as far as you could see or walk. If she’s there…”

“We may not find her before it’s too late.” He looked back at Veronica, praying to see even the barest shred of hope in her eyes.

Instead he saw fierce stubbornness. “We’ll find her,” Veronica insisted.

“But, well, there’s just no way to know, and once you go out there you may not find your way back. The house you were haunting, the afterlife you were leading, that could all end if you go through that door.” She looked at JD, beseeching. “I might never see you again. Please, just stay here.”

JD looked down at the ground, not able to look between his mother and his wife again. Veronica stepped forward, and he felt her hand slip into his. 

“Mom,” He said, feeling the same ache that had lived in his heart since she’d died. “I don’t want you to think this is a judgement, or a condemnation for what you did, but I can’t stay. There’s a kid that needs me.”

He closed his eyes as he walked past her, looking away in shame and because he didn’t want to see the scars and charred remains of who she had been. He had stopped being angry at her a long time ago—years in therapy had helped with that—but part of him had never really stopped wondering why he hadn’t been enough to stick around for.

“Jason,” She whispered, but he kept his hand wrapped around Veronica’s and his eyes on the door. They stepped through it together, into a silence so huge he could taste it.

* * *

Lydia felt like she had been walking for lifetimes. She was tired, alone, scared, and very, very lost. She tugged at the lace threads on her dress, imagining them unwinding and leading her back to where she’d come from like Ariadne’s string.

She looked up, searching the purple-black sky for stars. Her mother had taught her how to navigate with the stars once on vacation. Lydia had laughed back then, because stars couldn’t help anyone navigate New York City, but she remembered it all the same.

There were no stars down here. The sky was huge and empty, bruise colored and unforgiving. It was not like the city sky, which won a competition against the stars, but allowed you to remember that there were, somewhere far away, upstate, still stars. This sky mocked her, looking like it had hung up there forever, empty and starless.

Having frightened herself with those thoughts, Lydia wrapped her arms around herself and kept walking. There was no path, just the endless packed dirt ground which left no footprints. The only markers were the shadows that drifted by her at a distance. She knew they were souls, ghosts like JD and Veronica, but she let them keep their distance.

“Mom?” She whispered, just to fill the silence. “Emily Deetz?”

There was no answer, just like there hadn’t been the first hundred times she’d called, or the hundred after that, until she’d been too tired to do anything but walk.

The doubts that had been twisting in the back of her mind were getting louder, demanding attention. What if she had doomed herself on an impossible mission? What if there was no way out of here? What if she was lost forever, trapped in this empty space.

“Mom?” She called again, her voice breaking as a sob climbed up her throat. “Where are you?”

Nobody answered.

Lydia kept walking, clinging to the shreds of the resolve that had brought her all this way. She wanted to see her mom. She was here, in the middle of death itself, searching for her mom because she would make all this better, just as soon as Lydia could see her, could talk to her. But other thoughts were slipping past that stubbornness. The memory of her little room with its ocean view, in a sturdy house that looked old but smelled bright and new, her bed, with its black quilt that Copernicus’s dark fur nearly blended into.

She didn’t want to admit to herself that right now, those things sounded better.

“MOM!” She called again, and the word clawing its way out of her throat. “I did all this for you,” She whispered. She had given up everything to come here, and as tightly as she was clinging to hope, it was slipping away like water through her fingers.

She didn’t wait for an answer. “I want to go home.” The words didn’t mean much to her, even as she spoke them. She didn’t think she had a home anymore.

She didn’t think she had anything anymore.

“What’s this?”

She turned. Wrapped up in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed two of the shades getting closer to her, taking shape into two boys, a little older than her, wearing scarlet football uniforms.

“Fuck me,” The taller one said, “I think she’s alive.”

“Um… No, I just—”

“She is,” The other one said, stepping closer to Lydia. “She’s alive.”

Up close, she could see that the taller one hade a red, bloodstained hole in his throat, which somehow didn’t hinder his ability to speak. The other one’s jersey almost hid the bloodstain on his chest, but Lydia saw it and stepped away.

“I think… I think there’s been a mistake,” Lydia said. “I’m not—”

“What are you doing here, live girl?” He said it like an insult.

“She’s one of those gothic freaks.” The other one took a step closer, and Lydia had the distinct impression that she was being boxed in, trapped. “I bet she’s obsessed with death.”

“I thought they just killed themselves, how the fuck did she get down here alive?”

“By accident,” Lydia said, trying to keep her voice steady. “This was all just a big mistake.” That felt like the first honest thing she’d said to anyone in a long time.

The bigger one moved closer, until he was only inches away from Lydia, and she had the sick thought of whether or not he could touch her. She took a step away and collided with the other one, confirming her worst fears.

He grabbed her, leaning too close. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a live girl.”

“Get away from me!” Lydia struggled, trying to worm her way out of his grip, but he was twice her size and strong.

“She kinda reminds me of Heather,” One of them said and Lydia didn’t like the way his eyes narrowed at the comparison.

“Leave me alone!” Lydia shouted. An insane plan occurred to and she started talking before she had time to consider it fully. “Let me go or else!”

“Oh, or else?” He laughed mockingly. “Or else what, little girl?” He fiddled with a strand of her hair.

“Or else I’ll send you to hell! I’m alive in the netherworld because I have special powers, and I can kill ghosts!”

“Hey, Kurt, can she do that?”

“No, you moron, she’s making it up.”

“I am not!” Lydia insisted. She’d dealt with bullies before. She could do this.

She had told her mother once that kids at school were mean to her because she was weird. Her mother had replied that they were scared of weird, and if she wanted to get rid of them, she should just be the weirdest in the room.

“I have power over life and death,” Lydia bellowed, “I’ll curse you into hell! Dead two times over to sit and suffer forever!”

She could see that it was working, could feel their grip shift, hesitate, on her shoulders.

“I CAST YOU OUT!”

They paused, the silence filling in around them again.

“Nothing’s—”

But something was happening, smoke was filtering around them, collecting together until it formed a vaguely human shape, eventually becoming solid.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

“It’s a living girl!”

The new man’s jaw flexed. “Yes, obviously. Let her go.”

“But, Coach—”

“Let her go.”

They did, stepping away obediently.

Lydia jumped away and considered running, but she’d been walking for what felt like years and her boots felt like they were made of stone. She stayed where she was, hoping she could fade into the background and be ignored.

“You can go,” He said. “I’ll take it from here.”

“But, Coach,” Kurt started again, gesturing at Lydia.

The man narrowed his eyes. “This living girl is a guest in our afterlife.” He turned those sharp, glittering eyes onto Lydia. “Did they make you feel welcome?”

Lydia shook her head, panicked.

“Apologize to her.”

Both boys mumbled awkward apologies.

“Go.”

They nodded, shuffling away until they were shadows again, drifting off into the vast emptiness around them.

“Thank you,” Lydia said quietly.

“I’m sorry about them,” He said, “They were murdered, like I was, and they let it make them bitter against the living.”

Lydia looked closer, suddenly realizing that the red on his shirt—which she had thought was some kind of odd, almost floral pattern—was a bloodstain, bright against the white.

“It’s okay,” Lydia stuttered, even though she wasn’t really okay at all.

“I tried to take them under my wing,” He said, “Since the circumstances of our deaths were so similar, but they don’t make it easy. Tell me, little one, what brings you to the netherworld before your time has come?”

Lydia hated being called little. “I’m Lydia,” She said, reaching out to shake his hand. He took it, his hand temperatureless and strange. She flashed back to another of her mother’s fairy stories, about the danger of giving your name, but pushed the thought aside. “And… I came here looking for someone.”

“My, my, that’s a desperate measure,” He said. “Come, sit for a while and tell me about it.”

“Well… I,” She paused, then went on. “I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t met these two ghosts, JD and Veronica. They told me they would help me get my dad to leave their house, and I would move back home to find my mom.”

He was listening raptly now, his eyes such a bright, polished black that Lydia couldn’t look right in them. It felt nice to have someone’s whole attention, though to share her woes. She ignored her suspicions and sat down, and his legs folded, graceful and spider-like underneath him so he could join her.

She spilled the whole story to him, every detail about their disastrous attempt to scare her father, about stealing the book, and about using it to open a gate into the netherworld. The whole time, he listened, nodding sympathetically at all the right points.

“You know, he said, it’s very odd that they never tried to possess him. There’s no one who’s not scared of being possessed.”

“They can do that?” Lydia asked.

“Any ghost can do that,” He explained.

“But… why wouldn’t they tell me?”

He sighed. “Lydia, I’m afraid you’ve been very badly deceived. You see, I know JD and Veronica. In fact, Veronica murdered me.”

“What?” Lydia stared at him. “But that’s impossible. They couldn’t…” Veronica was a little prickly and sarcastic, for sure, but a murderer? And JD, quiet, funny JD who liked cats and architecture and made dumb jokes. “They couldn’t kill anyone,” She insisted.

“I fell for her tricks too, and so did the boys you met. JD and Veronica murdered Kurt and Ram too, when they were just a little older than you.”

“So…” Lydia couldn’t wrap her head around it, couldn’t make this new information make sense. “But… what does that have to do with me?”

“Veronica lives to make everyone around her miserable. She did it to me, too, and when I threatened to reveal what she was, she murdered me in cold blood and pretended I had attacked her.”

Lydia’s eyes burned, filling with tears which she didn’t bother fighting. “They never wanted me to find her, did they? They just… they were just messing with me.”

“I’m afraid so,” He said, wrapping an arm around her. There was no comfort in the near weightlessness, no warmth in the strange facsimile of a hug. Lydia wondered if ghosts were different down here, because she remembered the heavy comfort of JD’s arm around her when they’d been sitting in the attic, Copernicus on her lap.

“And now I’m stuck here, and I have no idea how to find my mom or leave or what I want to do—” She hiccupped, her voice getting stuck in her throat.

He patted her back a little awkwardly. “I’m sorry. Loss is so hard to handle; it makes all of us do crazy things.”

Lydia wiped her eyes. “Really?”

He nodded. “And I’m sorry that I can’t help you find your mom down here, but there might be something else we can do.”


	9. Time to Face the Brutal Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly don't know if I need to apologize for how long this took because I don't remember if it took a long time. Enjoy!

The fields were so enormous they almost felt claustrophobic. JD clung to Veronica’s hand as they stepped through the door and onto the ground. Other ghosts milled around, all at a distance, none of them overly interested in the newcomers.

Heather shuddered. “I hate the fields.”

Veronica turned, confused. “Then why did you come?”

She shrugged. “I just know that some bad types hang out around here. It might be fun to see you get fucked over.” She flipped her hair, the gesture not very effective because of the elaborate twist she wore her hair in. In here, the blue on her lips and cheek stood out even more, almost glowing against her skin.

Veronica tried not to stare at JD, who’s fatal injuries were also harder to ignore. The tire track over his face looking eerie, while the road paint was luminescent like Heather’s stain. Veronica hated to imagine what she looked like and was very glad there were no mirrors in the netherworld.

“Where do we go?” The three of them had a long moment to stare at each other and wait for someone else to take the lead.

A demanding bump against her leg, combined with an irritable yowl caught her attention. Nostradamus, looking just as well as he always had, if perhaps a little bigger and more intimidating stared up at them and jerked his head in a direction.

“Hi, Nosy,” Veronica said, reaching down to pet him. “I didn’t know you followed us here.”

He flexed his head in a way that Veronica swore was impatient, ducking away from her hand and giving another demanding chirp.

“Cats can pass in and out of the netherworld as they please,” Heather said. “They don’t need doors like us.”

“Wait,” JD said, “Cats are the guardians of the netherworld in Egyptian mythology. This is insane, but what if—”

Nostradamus abruptly started bouncing strangely, still jerking his head towards the distant nothing. The strange, uncharacteristic noises continued.

“Are you suggesting we follow the cat?” Veronica asked. “JD, that’s—”

“Veronica, we can wander around down here for eternity and never see her, or we can take a chance and follow him. Look! He looks like he knows where he wants to go.”

“Fine, but it’s important that you know how crazy this sounds.”

“We’re really going to follow the fucking cat?” Heather asked.

“First of all, his name is Nostradamus, and second, no one is asking you to come along, Heather.” Without waiting for a response, JD started to walk away, and Veronica hurried to follow.

Heather just shrugged and walked with them, keeping up with the surprisingly fast pace Nostradamus was setting as they delved further and further into the netherworld.

There was no way to mark time with the endless, empty purple sky, so hours or days might have passed before Nostradamus began to get really demanding again. Ahead of them, Veronica could barely make out two figures in the distance. They might have been spirits, like the ones they’d been passing as they walked, but one of them looked different.

She was brighter, less blurry around the edges, a clean cut-out where all of them were faded.

“She’s alive,” Veronica whispered, and began to run.

JD was right with her, and a swell of hope so powerful it spun her head began to rise.

She wasn’t paying any attention to the spirits around her and didn’t even notice when two of them became solid right in front of her.

She collided with them, and before she could pull away, one of them had gotten his arms around her and was holding on.

“Ew, she got old.” The voice was so familiar Veronica felt nauseous.

“Let go of me, Ram,” She said. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Maybe you should be,” He said.

“Let her go,” JD said, his jaw was tense, the dark black tire marks on his face making him look far more dangerous than Veronica knew he was.

“You know, it’s a really bad idea to come to the Netherworld when you’ve killed people,” Heather said. “Some people hold grudges.”

“We don’t plan to stay long,” JD said, jerking away from Kurt, who’d been holding him.

Veronica squirmed in Ram’s arms, trying to get away and wondering whether or not ghosts in the netherworld could feel pain. She had never been above a little biting in an urgent situation.

“Let us go,” Veronica said. “We’re not here to bother you.”

“But we will if we have to,” JD interrupted.

Veronica rolled her eyes at him, silently begging him not to escalate this.

“Sorry, but we have to. You can’t bother Dominic right now. He’s busy.”

The world tilted, a head rush that would have sent her blood rushing from her face if she’d had a body or a life or blood. “W-What was that?” She had to have heard wrong. They couldn’t possibly be talking about—

“Dominic. He’s like our new coach. We met him in murder group.”

“What?” JD asked, voicing just one of the many four-letter words that were racing through Veronica’s mind.

Heather groaned. “You actually went to those?” She turned to Veronica who was still trying to slip out of Ram’s grip. “They set up these groups for people who had been murdered by the same people, like one of those hippy, emotional-support things. I never went because I didn’t want to spend time with these assholes—nice work killing them though—but I guess you had one more?”

“Dominic was different,” Veronica whispered. “It wasn’t…”

“V, it’s okay,” JD said. “We don’t owe them an explanation.”

“Really? You don’t think I deserve any kind of closure, or reason why you _fucking_ murdered me before I graduated high school?” Heather forced her face back into a smile with effort that looked painful. “Not that I care.”

“It was an accident,” Veronica said. “A joke.”

“Yeah, having done a little bit of research on this—”

Veronica shot JD a look that he either didn’t see or refused to acknowledge.

“—It’s pretty strange that you died right away like that. Apparently there are usually a few minutes to an hour where you can—”

“JD, I don’t think this is helpful,” Veronica pointed out.

Heather’s eyes narrowed. “I still hate you, but like I said, I’m over it. The best dead people are the ones who stop obsessing over their deaths, so I gave that up.” The carved-on smile was back, but she wasn’t shouting or swearing, so Veronica counted that as something of a victory. “I’m over it.”

“We’re not,” Kurt said. “You shot me in the fucking throat.”

Veronica glanced at JD, assuming that it wouldn’t be helpful to admit that neither of them exactly regretted those murders, and that every experience she’d had with Dominic—a more grown up version of what they had been—had only made her more sure that they had done the right thing.

“We need to get through,” Heather said, smoothing past the moment without Veronica needing to say anything. “And you’re going to let us.”

“Hey—”

Heather glared, and though Veronica now saw the expression of an insecure teenager clinging to imagined power, it still had an effect on Kurt and Ram.

“He doesn’t want anyone to interrupt while he’s talking to the living girl.”

“If he so much as touches her I’ll tear him to shreds.” Veronica’s voice came out calmer than she felt, but she hadn’t planned to speak at all.

“Let’s walk them over,” Kurt said, clearly caught between loyalty to his ‘coach’, fear of Heather’s wrath, and apprehension about the venom behind Veronica’s tone. “We’ll let Dominic decide what to do.”

Veronica was expecting to walk into a hostage situation. As soon as she’d heard Dominic’s name, she’d pictured him holding Lydia against her will, that very familiar threatening glint in his eye. What she found was too people talking calmly, and an accusing glare from Lydia.

“Lydia,” JD said quietly, “Come here.”

“No.” Lydia put her hands on her hips, jutting her chin up in stubborn fury.

 _Oh god, not this._ Veronica thought, _Not now._ “Lydia—”

“You lied to me. You lied about everything!”

“What?” JD glanced back at Veronica. “Lydia, I don’t know what he said to you, but—”

“He told me the truth.” Behind the glare, Veronica saw Lydia’s pain, her eyes were liquid, though her face was set with fury. “He told me what you did.”

“What—”

“You’re murderers!” Lydia’s voice was shrill, almost hysterical. “And you lied about your powers! You could have scared my dad and you didn’t! And you killed people! You just wanted me to be miserable.”

“Lydia,” Veronica said, forcing the word out around the terror lodged in her throat. “He’s lying to you. Please… please believe me. He isn’t…”

She didn’t feel like she was talking to Lydia anymore. She stared at small, frail Lydia, her face streaked with tears as she shook with fear and fury, and she saw herself when she was younger.

“Please, Lydia, he’s going to hurt you.”

“Really? Like you hurt him?”

Veronica jerked back like she’d been slapped. It felt worse than being slapped. It felt worse than dying in a motorcycle accident.

“Lyds,” JD whispered. “You don’t know—”

“He told me everything,” Lydia insisted. “He told me you killed people—”

“Can’t really argue with that,” Heather muttered, and though Veronica wanted to get angry, she was too scared to do anything at all.

“He told me what you did to him, and he told me that you just wanted me to suffer, that you never wanted me to find my mom.”

Through all that, Dominic had just stood and watched, his face eerily unchanged from when Veronica had known him. Only the bloom of blood on his chest told her that he wasn’t exactly as he had been. Now, she saw the slow smile spread over his face.

“But don’t worry,” He said, looking Veronica in the eye as if she were the only person there. “I told her that I can help.”

JD started struggling against Kurt, who had him gripped around the shoulders. In a fight, she almost always would have bet on JD, but the rules seemed different down here, and he wasn’t getting away. “Stay away from her!”

“No, you stay away!” Lydia snapped. “All you’ve done is lie to me, ever since we met! I thought you were nice! I trusted—”

Her voice hitched into a sob and she looked away, glaring at the gray dirt that surrounded them. Veronica tried to wiggle free again, managing to free one hand and reach for Lydia. “I promise we will tell you everything, explain everything, if you just get away from him.

“It’s too late for that,” Dominic said, though Veronica swore she saw something flicker on Lydia’s face. “Lydia and I have already made a deal.”

JD turned to look at Veronica, and she saw all of her fear and anger and pain reflected on his face. “Lydia, please, whatever he told you, you can’t trust him.”

“Did you kill him?” Lydia asked Veronica.

Veronica’s stomach twisted with guilt. “Yes, but—”

“And the others? The weird football guys?”

“And me,” Heather supplied unhelpfully.

Taking a second to glare at Heather, Veronica nodded again. “Yes, but—”

“So why shouldn’t I trust him?”

“Lydia, it’s a really long story, you have to—”

“No.” Lydia squared her thin shoulders, jutting out her chin in a childish facsimile of defiance. “Dominic said he would take me home and that we could fix everything once we got there.”

“He’s lying to you!” JD shouted while Veronica tried to recover from the pain of hearing Lydia say his name.

“Could you have possessed her father?” Dominic asked, twisting the knife.

Veronica nodded, dropping her head. “Yes.”

She was so tired. It all felt like a forgone conclusion. Of course Dominic would come back just when they were settling into death, which had come far too soon after they’d really made a life for themselves. Long ago she’d wondered if she and JD were too broken for real happiness, it seemed that the universe was still trying to convince her this was so.

“Lydia,” She whispered, on final, broken attempt. “I’m sorry.”

Sorry she couldn’t protect her from this, sorry Dominic was dead because if Veronica had left him alive, maybe they wouldn’t be here, sorry that she had lied, sorry that Lydia’s mother was dead, sorry that she had come here in search of someone she would never find, sorry for every action that had led them all to this moment.

For a bare instant, Veronica thought Lydia’s face softened, thought that maybe there was a little bit of hope that Lydia, at least, could get away from this, but Dominic pulled on her arm and the connection snapped. “It’s too late for that. Let’s go.”

Veronica missed what exactly happened after that, but somehow there was another portal, and Dominic was dragging Lydia through it. Kurt and Ram let go of her and JD and dove through the portal after them.

When the roaring had stopped and the portal had vanished—long before JD and Veronica had a chance to try and get through it—they were left standing next to Heather Chandler, alone in the vast, unending emptiness.

Heather looked around, taking this in. “Well, fuck.”


	10. These Dopes are All Hopeless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

JD had wanted to commit a few murders in his life. He’d been accused of murder twice, and attempted murder once, and had even gone through with roughly one and a half murders, assuming the one he had set up but that Veronica had completed didn’t count. His thoughts had, many times, been very, very dark.

But this, standing in the infinite nothing, was the most furious, the most murderous, the most hell-bent on bloodshed he had ever been.

Dominic had Lydia. Dominic, Kurt, and Ram, three of the most detestable people JD had ever encountered, had absconded with a terrified, traumatized teenager for god knew what reason, and there was not a god damn fucking thing he could do about it.

And Veronica was a mess.

Under normal circumstances, he would run. Feelings like this didn’t go away, he had to get away from them, had to run so far and so fast that he couldn’t think about anything past the aching in his muscles and the stinging tear in his lungs. And here, he had finally encountered the perfect place for it. The fields didn’t stop; he could run forever and never reach a wall or a corner or an obstacle of any kind, which is exactly what he needed right now, because this didn’t feel like an escapable rage. But Veronica needed him.

She was sitting on the ground, staring into the distance, her face so pale that the black streaks of tar—already garish and terrifying—were brutal.

“V?” He whispered. She didn’t move when he put his hand on her shoulder. “Veronica?”

Still no response. He remembered when her doctors had been concerned about brain damage. It had never really had a chance to sink in that she might never really come back to him. Now, he felt all that as she stayed frozen in place unwilling or unable to even look at him.

“What are you going to do?” Heather asked, watching them apathetically.

JD had almost completely forgotten her presence. She was at the bottom of his current list of priorities and he doubted that was going to change. He ignored her and went back to trying to get Veronica to do something.

“V, please, Lydia—”

“Who was that guy?”

“Heather, I really do not have—”

“My ex.” Veronica’s voice was so quiet that if they had been in a world with wind, or surrounded by people who needed to breathe, it would have been drowned out completely.

“Shit,” Heather muttered.

“I killed him,” Veronica continued. “He tried… I think he wanted to kill me, or he wanted to kill JD, but I killed him first. I got lucky.”

Lucky was not how JD would describe anything that had happened that day, but he was so relieved that she was talking that he didn’t dare interrupt.

“And now he has that kid?” Heather asked.

Lydia was barely more of a kid than Heather was, but no one pointed that out. Veronica nodded. “We were just trying to help her.”

“We have to do something,” Heather said. “They’re creeps, and everyone knows Dominic is one of those weird ghosts who’s all obsessed with ghost stuff.”

“Ghost stuff?” JD asked

Heather shrugged. “Like the stuff in the handbook; how to use ghost powers, how to get more ghost powers, using and abusing netherworld rules and structure. That’s probably how he got a portal to open like that, but having a living girl helped.”

“Why?”

“Did you even read the handbook?” Heather asked.

JD shifted. “We skimmed.”

“It’s complicated. I’d need a law degree to really understand it and I never got to get one of those because of you, so—”

“Heather!” JD snapped, hating himself when Veronica flinched.

Heather rolled her eyes and went on. “We have powers because we were alive, so when you add a living person to the equation, we get more powerful. That’s half the reason the living aren’t supposed to know about us; a particularly ambitious ghost could start world war three if they wanted to.”

“So, Lydia…”

“Could be responsible for the apocalypse. And not that it matters, but you’re both worm food if you don’t find a way to fix all this.”

“What the hell does that mean? Worm food? We’ve been dead for days; I’m sure the politic worms are already eating at us.”

“Ew.” Heather’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “I meant sandworms, obviously.”

“What the fuck is a sandworm?”

“It’s a worm. That lives in the sand.”

“What, here?” JD looked uncertainly at the ground, reaching for Veronica in case he needed to pull her out of harm’s way.

Heather rolled her eyes in a way that was starting to really get on his nerves. He regretted killing her, but god he was starting to wonder if maybe it had been the right call after all. “No, not here. The Otherworld. It’s full of nothing but sand and giant worms with two mouths that eat the dead.”

“Excellent. I’ll look forward to dying again after I screwed up being dead the first time.”

“I’m glad you have such a good humor about things,” Heather said. “I can’t stand the things myself.”

“Are we stuck here?”

Once again, all eyes turned to Veronica, whose long lapse into silence had rendered her almost invisible

Heather shrugged. “Sort of. There are ways back out, but… I don’t know what they are really.”

“Who knows?” Veronica asked, and when Heather didn’t answer immediately, she stood up and grabbed Heather by the shoulders. “WHO KNOWS?”

“Jesus!” Heather jerked back away from Veronica. “Violent much? I don’t know. People like Dominic who study the handbooks, I guess.”

“You guess or you know?” Veronica snapped. “Tell me, Heather!”

“God, I know, okay? All that stuff is in the handbooks.”

“Why are you saying hand _books_?” JD interrupted. “There’s more than one?”

“It’s a series,” Heather explained, sounding like someone at the end of her limited patience. “The handbook for the recently deceased, for the less recently deceased, for the significantly deceased, and the handbook for the extremely deceased. You get new ones as you finish the old ones and take the test.”

“Test?”

“Yeah, you have to take a comprehension test in order to pass onto the next book. There’s a special test if you want to work in one of the offices.”

“The offices?” JD said, feeling suddenly more hopeful. “Veronica, my mom might know how to—”

“Let’s go.” She grabbed his hand and practically dragged him back in the direction they’d come from.

Probably.

After they’d walked for a while it sank in that he wasn’t positive that this was the way they’d come, and there were no landmarks to go off of. They were marching determinedly towards nothing, or possibly something, but it was unlikely. Heather seemed to be aware of this, and followed behind at a distance, not bothering to keep pace.

“Veronica,” He said carefully, “I think we need to—”

“Don’t, JD,” She snapped. “This is our only plan, this is our only choice! He has Lydia!”

He pulled her against him as she started to breathe hysterically. Down here, air was so inessential that the sound was foreign, eerie. “Veronica, it’s—”

“I swear to god if you tell me it’s going to be okay, I’ll kill you again.”

“Fine. Just… don’t give up yet, V. We can figure this out.”

“That’s easy for you to say, but last time I went head to head with Dominic, I nearly died—”

“And he did die,” JD pointed out.

Veronica continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And he died in the middle of saying that he was planning to kill everyone I loved. Back then, that was just you but now… He’s going to hurt her, JD.”

“Where’d the cat go?” Heather asked, interrupting what had become a very emotionally charged moment.

“The what?”

“The cat? The one that led us out here in the first place?”

“Fuck,” JD said, dragging his hand through his hair. He’d forgotten about Nosy, and his ability to lead the way through this place. “Where did he…”

“Did he go through the portal with Lydia?” Veronica asked, the frantic note returning to her voice.

“I don’t—”

“No, he’s over there,” Heather said, pointing in the distance.

“What?” JD asked flatly.

Heather shrugged. “He’s over there. I think he’s waiting for us.”

“And you didn’t say this at first because…” Veronica’s jaw flexed with the impact of how hard she was gritting her teeth.

“I wanted you to stop talking about your damage.”

Veronica turned to JD. “I’m going to kill her again.”

“Later,” He said, putting a hand on her back. “One thing at a time.”

“Right. First Nosy, then Lydia, then Dominic, then Heather.”

“Sounds like we’re booked for the rest of the day.”

“God, you two are weird.”

Despite her complaints, Heather stayed with them as they approached Nostradamus, who stayed where he was until they were a few paces away and then moved further. JD wasn’t sure where, exactly, the cat thought he was leading them, but it was nice to be able to follow, to not have to make decisions.

Veronica was silent next to him, and the brief moment of levity they’d managed seemed to have drained her completely. She stared ahead with wide, empty eyes that disturbed him more than the evidence of their crash which lingered on her face.

He knew she was scared, knew that it was probably up to him to offer some comfort, but he had no fucking clue what to say. When she’d had nightmares about Dominic in the past, he had been able to calm her down with the fact that Dominic was dead. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. Now, only one of those was true.

They made it back to where they’d first come into the fields with Nostradamus in the lead. All of them hesitated, staring at the door.

“Are you okay?” Veronica asked him. “About your mom, I mean.”

“That’s… We don’t have time to deal with that.”

She nodded, accepting this answer, possibly because she couldn’t handle this any more than he could.

“Our priority is Lydia,” JD said.

“God, what is she? Your kid? Why do you care so much?”

“For the last time,” Veronica snapped, “Lydia isn’t our kid.”

“But she might as well be,” JD interrupted, glancing at Veronica. “I mean… I can’t be the only one who sees the similarity.”

They had wanted kids. They had talked about it, chickened out, and pretended not to care when they died before they were brave enough to try. And then Lydia had fallen into their lives, angry and powerful and so very sad.

He took Veronica’s hand, and she squeezed it gently, nodding. “She’s like we were.”

She didn’t have to clarify when, exactly, they’d been like that. They both knew. If they’d had knowledge of ghosts and afterlives and whatever necromancy Lydia had learned, could they honestly say they would have done anything differently?

“Remember when you said that we might as well be fucked up together, if we were too fucked up to be with anyone else?” Veronica asked.

JD nodded. He remembered everything about their early months, when being with Veronica had been a revelation, rather than a daily fact. When, he wondered, had he started taking that—taking her—for granted?

“She’s part of that now. Maybe Lydia’s too messed up for normal parents. Maybe…”

 _Maybe she needs us._ Veronica didn’t say it, but she didn’t need to. JD knew exactly what she meant, and he brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it.

“Let’s go get our girl."

* * *

Lydia had fucked up. She knew that. She wanted to apologize, but her mom had taught her long ago that sorry didn’t always fix what had gone wrong. This was one of those times. She had abandoned JD and Veronica in the Netherworld, had joined forces with Dominic, an unknown entity that she was beginning to suspect was evil, and now their house was wrecked.

In the midst of so much mess, it was strange that she’d become so fixated on the house, but each time Dominic made a change, she felt it as though he were twisting and altering her bones.

The house was destroyed. From the outside, Lydia imagined that it looked the same, but everything else was gone. Clearly, Dominic derived some kind of pleasure from uprooting, overturning, and obliterating every last trace of the cozy, brightly lit, little house by the ocean. Now it was dark, burned out like a husk, and the hallways twisted around to lead away from the front door no matter where she tried to go.

She had taken refuge in the attic with her dad, Lydia, and Copernicus, who she swore was avoiding her in an almost accusatory way.

 _You did this,_ His eyes seemed to say as he watched her from across the room. _This is your fault._

The worst part was that he was right.

“Lydia!” That was Dominic, calling from downstairs to suggest some new torment. It had taken her about thirty seconds from when they’d arrived to realize that Dominic had some kind of agenda, though he hadn’t gone so far as to tell her what it was yet. So far, he had just meandered around, laughing as he ruined JD and Veronica’s house while Kurt and Ram followed him making jokes that weren’t funny.

“Don’t go,” Her father hissed. He said this every time Dominic called for her, and every time she ignored him.

“If I don’t, he’ll just come looking for me.” She let her eyes drift to Delia in the corner. “I’ll be back soon.”

Delia was shaken up and scared. She cried frequently and always seemed to be shaking like a cold chihuahua, no matter what was going on. Even mentioning Dominic made her release a pathetic little whimper before she returned to her near catatonia.

Lydia wasn’t exactly sure what Dominic had done to her. He’d made what she hoped were jokes about torture, and Lydia had muttered something about a crazed circus full of demons, but neither Lydia nor her dad could make any sense of what had happened. Delia, it seemed, would not be able to offer any spiritual guidance on this situation, not that Lydia was inclined to ask for it.

As wrong as everything had gone since she’d gone to the netherworld, Lydia still felt that streak of bitterness when she looked at Delia and her father. At first, Dominic’s treatment of them had even felt a twisted kind of good, but it hadn’t taken long before Lydia felt burned hollow like the house. It wasn’t funny anymore; Dominic had not delivered on his promise to bring her mom back, and she was beginning to suspect that he couldn’t do it.

“Lydia!” He called again, and she ignored her father’s weak protest and darted down the stairs before he could come looking for her.

Dominic smiled when she entered what was no longer the living room. “Ah, my little salvation. I’m so glad to see you.”

“Hi.”

“Why so glum?” He asked, sounding forced and ugly. “I have good news.”

Lydia wondered what it was that was so wrong about his face. Technically, she thought maybe he would have been handsome, but his eyes were too bright, his teeth too perfect, his smile just a touch too wide. All those toos adding up to something that was horrific in its normalcy, demonic for just how human it was.

“What?” She said shortly, hoping to get away from this exchange with as few syllables as possible.

“I can bring your mother back.”

Her heart skipped a beat, racing against her will. She didn’t want to believe him. Didn’t want to hope. “Really? How?”

“Now, let’s not skip to that right away. Let’s talk, Lydia.”

She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to run, except that every time she’d tried she just ended up circling the house, unable to escape. Dominic had found that particularly funny.

“What’s changed, Lydia?”

 _Why do you keep using my name?_ She wanted to ask. It made her feel weird. “What?”

“You used to like me so much, but it seems like something has changed. Did I do something?”

Lydia looked around the house, the black, windowless walls, railings which moved like they were alive, shivering like spines. She remembered how nice she’d once thought this house was. “No.”

“I don’t like being lied to, Lydia,” He said quietly. “Maybe I should bring your dad down here and see if he knows what happened?”

His tone was friendly. He smiled. And yet, somehow, Lydia felt like he was threatening her. “No, it’s okay. He wouldn’t know.”

“So something has changed?”

“No,” Lydia lied again. “I’m sorry, I’m just… you told me you could bring my mom back. You said you had powers that JD and Veronica—”

“DON’T SAY THEIR NAMES!”

Lydia frowned. “What?” She’d never seen him get alarmed, or even angry before, not really. Yelling was so out of character that Lydia had almost thought someone else had done it.

He swallowed so hard Lydia could see his throat move. “Names, for ghosts. Have power. You don’t want to do something you’ll regret.”

“I don’t understand—”

“You don’t need to.”

Lydia nodded. “Okay. Um, well, you said you had powers, so I just thought that you would bring back my mom, like you said, and you haven’t, so…”

“Lydia, these things take time. I told you that there were ways, but that I had to be in the world of the living to be able to do something like that.”

“But we are—”

“Don’t interrupt me, Lydia. I need to be in the world of the living to bring someone back from the dead, and, as it turns out, I need something else.”

He paused, and Lydia suspected it was for drama. “What?”

“I need to be alive.”

“What?” That didn’t make any sense. “But if a living person could bring her back then I—”

“Not a living person,” Dominic corrected. “A person who has come back to life. A living ghost.”

“Oh.” She was tempted to be a smartass and ask where they were going to get one of those, but Dominic had made it clear that he intended to be the ghost. “How do we—”

“That’s what this all comes down to, Lydia,” He said with an eerie smile. “It’s up to you.”

“I don’t—”

“Do you want to bring your mom back?”

“Yes.” She’d sacrificed too much to give up now.

“Then I just need one little thing from you.”

“Anything,” Lydia said immediately.

Dominic’s smile grew wider. Too wide. “Well then, Lydia Deetz, will you marry me?” 


	11. Look Who's Holding All the Aces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter because I'm trying to get back into the swing of writing.

The offices were just as crowded with colorful ghosts as they had been the last time Veronica was in there, but now they made her claustrophobic. She wanted to scream and shove and run through them until they had reached JD’s mother. Only Heather’s sedate pace kept her from causing a massive commotion in the waiting room.

Heather moved calmly and easily, unhesitating, through the crowd, and while no one parted for her the way they would have in high school, she still looked like someone who fit in. No one hissed or whispered as they passed.

“Alice?” Heather said, knocking on an office door Veronica hadn’t even noticed among all the people and doors. “Are you in there?”

“A bit busy,” She called from the other side. “Can you come back in a month or two?”

“What?” JD hissed. “A month? Lydia might not have—”

The door popped open. “Jason! I didn’t realize you were still here. Did you find the girl?”

“Yes,” Veronica answered for him. He was staring at his mother as if seeing her again for the first time, and Veronica imagined it would take a while before he didn’t look like he’d been hit by a car every time he looked at her. “But she went back to the world of the living with someone we know is dangerous.”

“Someone they killed,” Heather added.

Alice’s lips pressed together. “You really shouldn’t come to the Netherworld if you’ve killed anyone. Some people hold grudges about that kind of thing.”

“JD didn’t kill him,” Veronica said, “I did.”

“To protect me,” He said, finally finding his voice. “And I would have killed him and not missed a night’s sleep. But now he has Lydia and I don’t know what he’ll do. We need to get back to the house.”

“Why didn’t you just go?” Alice asked, her charred eyebrows creasing in confusion.

“What?” Veronica asked flatly.

“Why didn’t you just draw a door and go?”

“Draw a…” JD dragged his hand through his hair.

His mother shook her head. “Didn’t you read the handbook?”

“I swear, if one more person asks me that,” Veronica muttered.

Apparently, she heard her, because Alice sighed and explained. “To get into or out of the Netherworld, all a ghost needs to do is draw a door and knock three times. It will open and take them back to their designated haunt. That’s in section one: To the Netherworld and Back Again.”

“Thanks, I’ll be sure to catch up on the reading when I get home,” JD said. “Do you have something to draw with?”

Alice went to her desk and pulled out a burned pencil, which was still smoking at the end.

JD held it for a moment before he looked back at her. “What kind of dimensions do you think—”

“Draw a fucking door or I’ll kill you.” She really did not have time for him to remember that he had been an architect. That was their other life. That was over now.

“Right.”

In thick, black lines, he sketched out a large rectangle, big enough for them to walk through, and drew a doorknob, messy and jagged in it. He glanced back at her, but Veronica reached past him to knock on the door.

It swung open, revealing a swirling green, liquid-looking window into their attic.

“Why does that lead to Westerburg?” Heather asked, staring through the door.

“That’s your designated haunt,” Alice explained. “They see theirs. It’s all very personal.”

“Oh.”

“So you can’t come with us?” Veronica asked Heather, feeling a stab of something like regret; Heather was a bitch, and an annoyance, but they needed all the allies they could get if they were facing off against Dominic.

“You could try to pull her through with you,” Alice suggested, “But I’m not sure it’ll work. I’ve never seen it tried.”

“Do you want to come?” Veronica asked, holding her hand out to Heather.

Heather glared at her for a long moment, long enough that Veronica’s impatience set in again, but then she grabbed her hand. “Yes. Anything to get out of here. Do you have any idea how _boring_ the afterlife is? If I have to sing Kumbaya one more time I’m going to barf.”

“Thanks,” Veronica said, feeling very awkward and very grateful and not sure what to do about either. She turned towards the door. “Let’s go.”

JD glanced back at his mom. “Thanks for helping. I hope… I’ll come back if I can.”

“Good luck,” She said. “And Jason? I’m so proud of you.”

If she looked closely, Veronica thought that maybe JD’s eyes were shining with more than the reflected light from the door, but she couldn’t be sure. He just nodded and stepped through.

Clinging to Heather’s hand, Veronica followed him. For a second, she felt like she was being pulled in two directions, stretched between the Netherworld and home, but all of a sudden, she was standing in the attic.

Or what should have been the attic.

* * *

JD had more important things to worry about, but he couldn’t help the moment of mournful agony he felt when he looked around what had once been his home. Even the attic had been lovingly designed so that they could someday fill it with stuff they didn’t need, but didn’t want to throw away, and so that they had a suitably creepy space to walk through when they went up to the widow’s watch.

Now, it was a dungeon. Three cells with thick, iron bars lined the walls and the window that had let in just enough light to cast shadows and backlight dust motes was gone, making the space eerie and dark.

“JD?”

He looked over and saw Lydia throwing herself against the bars. Her face was dirty and streaked with tears, her hair hanging in her face, the very picture of misery.

“You came back?” She asked, her voice choked.

“Lydia!” He ran over, reaching through the bars towards her. “Listen, you can’t believe what Dominic told you. He’s a liar, and a very good one. The kind who knows to tell the truth. What he said about Veronica and me… I know it sounds terrible—and it was! —but we aren’t like that, and—”

Lydia broke down into sobs. “I know. I figured it out. I thought he was good but—” She choked, shaking.

Veronica fell through the door, and unlike him didn’t spare a moment to grieve their home. “Lydia!”

She cried harder when she heard her name.

“Oh, god,” Heather muttered. “I can’t handle crying; Veronica, make her stop.”

“Jesus, Heather, show some sympathy,” Veronica hissed. “She’s a kid!”

“She’s a freshman,” Heather corrected disdainfully.

“I can’t believe you came back. He told me I’d never see you again.” Lydia swiped at her eyes, but it did very little to staunch the flow of tears.

Veronica wrapped her hand around Lydia’s on the cell bars. “Of course, we came back. We were worried about you.”

“Even though I trusted Dominic instead of you?”

Veronica smiled. “People much older than you have fallen for Dominic’s lies, Lyds; it’s not your fault.”

“How did you figure him out?” JD asked. It had taken Veronica a long time and a lot of pain to get to a point where she could admit that Dominic was a bad guy.

“He asked me to marry him,” Lydia said, gesturing to the dress she was wearing, which JD hadn’t really noticed before. “Good adults don’t try to marry fifteen-year-olds.”

“Words to live by,” Heather agreed. “Wait, shit.”

“What?”

“He said he wanted to marry you?” Heather asked. “Did he say why?”

“He said it would bring him back to life?”

“Damnit. That’s what I was afraid of.”

JD was still a little too enraged to speak, horrified on so many levels that it took him a moment to recover enough to ask. “What?”

Heather scowled. “It’s like immigration. If you marry someone who already lives somewhere, you become a citizen. If you marry a living person, you become a living person.”

“That’s… that’s a really bad rule,” Veronica said. “For dead people, at least.”

“I said no,” Lydia said. “Which is when he made this a jail and locked us in.

As if summoned, a knock sounded on the door. “Lydia! Have you reconsidered yet?”

“How long has this been going on?” JD whispered.

Lydia shrugged. “Days? It’s hard to tell.”

“It feels like forever,” A weak voice from the other cell muttered.

“Dad?” Lydia pressed her face against the bars, trying to see him. “Are you okay? My friends are here now, they’ll help us.” She looked back at JD and Veronica. “Right?”

“Of course,” Veronica said, and JD suspected she was just as unsure as he felt but wouldn’t let Lydia know it.

“Lydia? What’s going on in there?”

“Get out!” Lydia hissed. “He can’t see you.”

JD nodded, and he, Veronica, and Heather jumped through the ceiling and onto the widow’s watch. Sliding the trapdoor half-open so they could hear what was going on.

Dominic walked in, mostly out of their view, but JD felt Veronica tense up. Unlike JD, Veronica, and Heather, Dominic’s death injury hadn’t gone away. The gory red stain made JD shudder, remembering his own bullet scar.

“Hi,” Lydia said, and JD thought she did a remarkable job keeping her voice steady. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see how my fiancée is doing.” JD could hear the sick smile in his voice, and his fists clenched involuntarily at his sides. 

“Imprisoned and miserable,” Lydia droned. “And not your fiancée.”

“So you haven’t reconsidered?”

“No. And I’m not going to.”

“Lydia, we talked about this. If you want to see your mother again, ever again, this is what you have to do.”

“Well…”

“And if that’s not incentive enough, I might just start killing people.”

The words were so normal, the tone so strangely unthreatening that it took a moment to realize what Dominic had said.

“No!” Lydia said.

“And there’s always torture,” He continued. “If you won’t do what I want. Lydia, my life was unfairly taken from me. I’m just trying to get it back. We can make a deal, or I can make you. The choice is yours.”

Lydia gasped and started to protest.

At the same time, another voice—one JD had almost completely forgotten—piped up. “Leave her alone! I’ll do it!”

Heather looked at them, mouthing _Who is that?_

 _Stepmother_ , Veronica mouthed back.

JD hadn’t assumed Delia was dead. He hadn’t assumed anything about her; he’d utterly forgotten her. If he’d taken the time to remember her existence, he probably would have thought that Dominic had killed her, but it hadn’t crossed his mind.

It was brave, he thought, what she was trying to do, and he felt bad for his low estimation of her. Maybe she wasn’t a good parent to Lydia, maybe she wasn’t what Lydia needed, but the fact that she would make this sacrifice for her meant something, and certainly went a long way in making JD want to like her.

“Not you!” Dominic snapped. “You’re already married!”

“Vegas doesn’t count,” Delia insisted. “I can still marry you, just please, leave Lydia alone.”

“It does count, you stupid cow,” Dominic snapped, and JD had to admit that it made him smile that some of that cool, uncracked façade had slipped. “It has to be Lydia.”

“So, it counts if it’s a fifteen-year-old child but not if it’s a willing, adult volunteer?” Delia tried. “That’s—”

Her words cut off and JD heard Lydia’s dad scream. He didn’t want to imagine whatever horrible thing Dominic had done to her. He hoped she was still alive.

“You know,” Dominic said. “I tried so hard to incentivize you, Lydia. I really wanted to convince you to help me in a nice way, where we both got to win. But you’re stubborn. It’s sweet, I suppose, but I hate it. Then again, maybe I just didn’t give you the right motivation.”

Suddenly, the floor fell out from underneath JD. Next to him, Veronica and Heather plummeted down, landing hard on the attic floor.

“What about them?” Dominic asked, standing above them with a smile. “Can I make you help me with them?”

The floor moved, twisting underneath him until JD was propped against the wall. Next, the walls came alive, twining around his wrists and ankles like snakes until he was pinned against the wall, Heather and Veronica next to him.

“You know what’s great about being a ghost?” Dominic said, his smile growing even wider, until it was just slightly too wide. “You can stop other ghosts from doing stupid shit, like going through walls.”

“Let us go, Dominic!” Veronica begged.

It made JD sick. Veronica shouldn’t have to beg that bastard for anything. She should never have had to look at him again, if there was any justice in the world. And Lydia. JD yanked on his bindings, snarling wordlessly when he thought of her, trapped in this impossible mess.

“I will,” He said, “As soon as Lydia agrees to give me what I want.” He looked pointedly at Lydia.

JD didn’t wait for Lydia to try to answer. He yanked on his wrists again, very nearly breaking himself free. “Listen, you bastard, if you think I won’t throw away over a decade of therapy to rip your throat out with my fucking teeth, you’d better think again.”

But Dominic only smiled. God, how JD hated that fucking smile. “I’m terrified.”

The bonds tightened, and JD strained to look at Veronica, seeing her face twisting in agony. He knew Dominic would make her suffer, but he was damn near leaving his arms and legs in the wall if it meant the slightest chance of getting her out.

She was fighting, trying to stay strong, but something Dominic was doing must have been painful, and finally, a small scream tore out of her throat, spearing JD in the gut. He yanked on the restraints again, to no avail.

“See, Lydia?” Dominic said. “Actions have consequenses. You wanted your mother, you wanted to be a grown up, you wanted them to leave you alone. Now, you’re stuck with me. Your whole family is trapped here, and I’m going to kill them like bugs, if they’re not dead yet. If they are dead, well that’s even more fun, because it doesn’t have to stop.

That sick fucking smile seemed to fill the whole room now, reflecting light and scattering it into the corners and cells. “Or you can put a stop to it, Lydia. The choice is yours.”

“Fine, I’ll do it!” Lydia said. “But you have to promise you’ll let my dad, Delia, JD, and Veronica go, okay?”

“Lydia,” Veronica warned, her voice low and serious. “Do not do this. He’s lying. Nothing he promises—”

“Veronica!” Dominic snapped. “Don’t lie to the girl. People will think you’re jealous. Of all people, you know that I always keep my promises.”

Veronica fell silent, her head hanging down. JD grit his teeth, jaw aching with the pressure. “Lydia—”

“But I want a big wedding,” Lydia cut him off, suddenly adopting the affect of a snotty teenager, which didn’t suit her at all. “Really fancy. A girl only marries a ghost once, after all.”

“What?” Dominic frowned for a moment before gritting his teeth and nodding. “Fine.” He stormed out of the room, and JD got the impression he was leaving before he exploded in anger.

Lydia smiled broadly at his retreating back. “Smile, everyone. We’re going to have a wedding.” 

* * *

Lydia was up to something. Veronica had been a scheming teenager at one point—though now it felt like centuries ago—and she recognized the look. Heather seemed to be on the same page as they were both watching Lydia.

“You don’t have to do this,” JD was saying, rephrasing the same sentiment for the hundredth time. “We can find another way.”

“This is the only way, and I’m telling you that it will work out; I have a plan.”

“No offense, Lydia,” Veronica said, “But your plans don’t have a great track record, and you don’t know what you’re dealing with with Dominic. He’s probably on to you and—”

“He won’t see this coming,” Lydia insisted. “Just trust me.”

“Are you going to tell us what the plan is?” JD asked.

Lydia shook her head. “You’ll try to stop me.”

“This is promising,” Heather muttered.

“Lydia, sweetheart,” Charles said, “Just get out of here, run while you can.”

She barely glanced at him. “This is going to work; I’m sure of it.”

Veronica tried to pretend that she couldn’t hear that Lydia was convincing herself just as much as she was convincing them. Whatever she felt about this, Lydia was right; this was the only plan they had. Secretly, Veronica was relieved that she wasn’t the one coming up with it. With Dominic in the picture, she felt like she couldn’t think. Still, it wasn’t fair to make this Lydia’s responsibility. Maybe a part of her was tempted to draw another door and run into the Netherworld to hide forever, but scared as she was, she couldn’t abandon Lydia.

So she steeled herself, squaring her shoulders and meeting Lydia’s eyes. “How can we help?”


End file.
